Guild Wars 2

scizwig.5492:

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!

perhaps if we changed spirits to work like kits, so instead of a passive buff you get a specific skillset with both attacks and buffs?
Sun spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 party buff (AOE might?)
4 AOE blind
5 Allies next 5 attacks apply burning

Frost Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Frost Armor?)
4 AOE Chill
5 Allies next 5 attacks does 10% more damage

Stone Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Stability?)
4 AOE Immob
5 Allies next 5 attacks apply 1 stack of bleeding

Storm Spirit;
1 AA
2 Burst
3 Party Buff (AOE Fury?)
4 AOE Swiftness
5 Allies gain 5 seconds of Quickness

Water Spirit;
1 AA heals allies on impact (similar to ele ice bow AA)
2 Burst Healing
3 Party Buff (AOE Regen)
4 AOE Condition Removal
5 Allies next 5 attacks steals health

Spirit of Nature;
1 AA
2 Burst (AOE boonsteal)
3 Party Buff (Aegis + Protection?)
4 AOE Condition removal
5 Revive up to 5 allies and grant them aegis+swiftness? (skill only usable once pr transform)

This way, spirits will provide less screen clutter. More active play, party buffs and enemy debuffs, and a “kit” function too. Allowing us to have alternate skillsets at hand if the need arises.

SkiTz.4590:

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.

I wouldn’t say all is wrong with the ranger, I like playing it a lot! And as far as sPvP goes, from what i have read. It’s a fairly decent profession to play.

But in PvE it can be somewhat frustrating fighting a vet and two adds for 5-7 minutes to ‘whittle’ them down. To then (when you stick around) see a Long Sword/Hammer Warrior bash them to death in under 30sec.

And there is more to GW2 than just sPvP, even if it is the benchmark for ‘balance’. The problem with the ranger mostly seems to be how to improve him in all aspects of the game (not being sPvP) while not improving him to much IN sPvP. Besides the obvious things like the pet and spirit resilience problem.

Specific Game Mode
PvX – problem mainly coming from WvW

Proposal Overview
Change the spirits to function like muddy terrain. Aka. a non destroyable effect that lasts for a decent amount of time, in a certain location. It could still harbour the 2nd spirit effect during the uptime of the spirit.

The effects of the spirits may well need to be reviewed in relation to what is actually needed in larger encounters.

Goal of Proposal
The goal is to give the Ranger a more trustworthy way to effect the battlefield with spirits and support their allies. With a ‘non destructible’ effect, the time the effect lasts should be reduced, but now at least the ranger can trust on them working for this period of time (instead of being one shot bombed).

- This could lead to the ranger using these skills to turn the tide of battle, and quite possible give them valuable tasks in WvW fights.

- It also helps in regards to fast changing fighting locations in all game modes. And in some cases spirits could be used to steer the fight into a certain location, by ‘area denial’. A medium powerful effect lasting for a shortish period of time, for a mediumish recharge time.

Associated Risks
The ranger becoming to powerful in sPvP
These spirits becoming to much like other classes effects, this mostly has to do with them thematically becoming different enough, and keeping the spirit disperse effect can help distinguish these spirits from other AoE influencers.

Associated Benefits
Traits related to spirits can be used to trait other things, the spirit effects could benefit from the trap traits instead, especially if their cast location is at the foot as a ‘base’ casting location.

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)

Couple things you forgot to take into consideration…. for starters, you lose the activated portion of the signet for the entire duration as well. So that’s a ton of toughness out as well for a very long time. The other thing you failed to consider is that this is in the hands of a Ranger….

I’d hardly consider the loss of 180 toughness and nearly double the cooldown of Endure Pain overpowered. Especially on the Ranger class that doesn’t have the ability to activate it a second time, or heavy armor, or 20k hp, etc etc.

Signet of the Wild is also in the same boat. You’re talking about 25% damage for a few seconds where the overwhelming majority of our damage comes from auto attack.

Now that all said, you had a pretty well thought out proposal for signets in another thread that I liked and if they did something like that I could see them toning them down. But I just don’t see our signets as being that overwhelmingly powerful when you take into consideration what else this class has to offer. In the hands of another class, maybe. But not the Ranger.

Prysin.8542:

Black Box.9312:

Miflett.3472:

We need to stop the wait and see approach as that leaves people in frustration for way too long and adopt a smaller, more frequent balancing cycle. You want a lower dps future with rangers being equal? Let’s start now.

This is exactly what I mean. Balancing in large chunks just leaves too much room for errors that won’t get properly addressed until the next big patch arrives months later. You look at MOBAs like Dota 2 and LoL and you see that they roll out multiple balancing updates a month, sometimes even on a weekly basis. This way there’s less that needs to be focused upon at once and it is much easier to build upon previous rebalancing to make a better game.

The sporadic updates every few months needs to stop. Balancing needs to come first and foremost, and additional content like living story needs to be secondary. People don’t care how much any new content has to offer when they feel handicapped by problems that are beyond their control.

A MOBA GAME IS DESIGNED AROUND ARENA PVP, NOT PVE. BOTH LOL AND DOTA2 HAS ONLY ONE OR TWO MAPS, THEREFORE, THEY DO NOT NEED TO BALANCE THE CHARACTERS FOR ANYTHING ELSE THEN PLAYER VERSUS PLAYER. A MOBA IS AT HEART THE PINNACLE OF GAME BALANCING. ONE WRONG STEP AND THE GAME ITSELF BREAKS.

GW2 is an MMO-RPG. It is a fantasy game, a online story telling game, with frequent STORY content being updated. It is NOT supposed to be a pureblood PvP game. No MMO is. The PvP section of GW2, GW1, Daoc, TESO, SWTOR, WoW, AoC, Rift, Aion, Runescape or any other popular MMO is NOT the main aspect of the game, it is the icing on the cake. It is what makes people keep interested inbetween the story updates.

We cannot do content updates with the same rate and “intensity” as a MOBA, simply because then PvE itself will be neglected. Once you neglect PvE and massive portion of the games player will simply stop playing after a while. Not because they cannot do PvP/WvW, but because a big number of people do not enjoy conflicts between players. They enjoy making their chars look sexy, or roleplay. However in MMO’s, you are free to do so without being plagued by the PvP’ers, this is why you see massive PvE populations while the PvP populations are mostly the ones who cling to the game to the bitter end, and the main reason for that is due to us humans being extremely competitive.

Did you know GW1 was originally supposed to be a PvP game?
It changed when the PvE section got popularized during the Nightfall expansion.
This alone may be the reason why the PvP players (such as myself) feel the need to get more attention towards PvP.

The best thing I could recommend is for the devs to read through
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ranger-Balance-PvP-WvW-PvE-PvX/

It has a lot of great suggestions and has been kept on track for ages. (the entire thread that is. Not just whatever post it comes up with first when clicking the link)

With respect to the burst/sustain discussion, that is a problem in every game mode. Ranger doesn’t have the survivability to account for sustained damage. There are just too few defenses and particularly immobilize will leave the ranger vulnerable and defenseless.

In PvE, you need fast burst if there are other ppl around if you want to actually get a reward for events. Most opponents in PvE have low health, so fast burst will kill them and then the skills will be recharged before next encounter.

In PvP, we have 1 viable build atm (spirits), so that in itself is a problem. Also again sustain doesn’t work well because a fight rarely stays 1v1 and if you need time to kill, your opponent will have more time to get reinforcements. In addition any opponent in PvP will move, making the pet hit less than it’s supposed to.

In dungeons damage wins in all cases but lack of AoE hinders the class along with the fact that our sustained damage even in long fights rarely add up to the burst of other classes (the cd on most burst skills on burst heavy classes is too short along with the non-burst skills being too strong). Also in dungeons, you have to constantly babysit the pet to keep its moderate contribution to damage, and even then the slow response of the pet along with the inability to control where it goes (without sacrificing a utility you can only order it to switch between ranger and opponent) will often get it killed anyway. Adding to this problem is the melee/range problem. Range will deal less damage and gain/give no party buffs but may just use recall/attack to try to keep the pet up. Melee will have better damage but nowhere to call the pet to save it. So we either lose damage from going range (ranger should be able to range without penalty) or from our pet dying.

Aria.5940:

The best thing I could recommend is for the devs to read through
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Ranger-Balance-PvP-WvW-PvE-PvX/page/9#post3631386

It has a lot of great suggestions and has been kept on track for ages.

Are you linking to the single post in particular? Or to the whole thread? If so, you might edit the link not pointing on a particular post.

Tried to link to the whole thread, not a particular post. Hoping it works now.

Specific Game Mode
PvE (this is where I spend 95% of my time)

Proposal Overview
This proposal suggests developing the interactions that the player has with their Pet in combat, in order to create opportunities for skillful and rewarding gameplay.

Goal of Proposal
The goal of this proposal is to create meaningful and rewarding interaction between the Ranger and the pet, so that rather than wishing for the ability to store the pet, a player is enabled to actively do more with a pet than without.The current state of the Ranger’s profession mechanic is such that for the majority of the time the player is required to manage a nuisance (the Pet) in order to prevent themselves from being inhibited when the Pet dies, leading to loss of damage, aggro control and utility through the pet’s skills etc. Each of the other professions (for the most part) has profession mechanics that feel impactful and can enable the player to do amazing things if utilised well. Heck I feel more attached to Net Turret than any of my Ranger’s pets, and only then because of its infamous antics. Usually at least one person cries out when Net Turret dies, but do you hear similar cries of despair when a pet dies?

Proposal Functionality
Firstly, as has been mentioned frequently in the CDI and prior, the Pet AI or compensation for it needs improvement. In order for the player to be able to make skilfull plays with their pet they need to be able to control them reliably.

Secondly, the F1-4 skills don’t include Guard/Avoid Combat or Stow/Activate Pet, which have to be clicked. I understand this is so that it remains in keeping with all the other professions by only using the first 4 F keys but I would like the option to take control with key binds.

Thirdly, I find that the majority of the Pets’ active abilities are underwhelming in terms of the impact they have. This is likely due to the fact that half the time they don’t even execute properly, which if they did would mean I’d be happier about them being a 4th utility skill. However, with their unreliability I’ve come to feel like they should almost be on the level of an Elite skill. The choice of which pet you take as a Ranger should be as defining as your Elite if they remain the primary defining feature of the class.

Finally, I think there’s an opportunity to make F3 a more useful ability than just an order for the pet to return to your position. For example, turn it into a skill with which you fire out a leash (or magical beam) at your pet and yank it back to your side. This would increase the speed at which the pet can be removed from danger and could be combined with making the pet evade whilst it is being pulled to you. The skill could then have a second active which allows you to toss your pet at your selected target, getting it back into combat immediately. Maybe the pet would just leap or Shadow Step if it seems a bit silly for you to be throwing your Bear around the battle, but how cool would that be!

Both parts of the skill could have traits associated with it:

• buff allies around the pet on pull
• buff allies around you on pull
• debuff enemies around pet on pull
• debuff enemies around you on pull

• buff allies around pet on toss
• buff allies around you on toss
• debuff enemies around pet on toss
• debuff enemies around you on toss

If you were able to combine all these traits this could be an example of what happens: When you fire out your leash, allies around your pet gain Protection and enemies are Weakened. When the pet arrives at your location nearby allies gain Swiftness and enemies are Blinded. When you throw your pet back out nearby allies gain Might and enemies are Crippled and when your pet lands allies around it gain Fury, and enemies are knocked down. Obviously this is just hypothetical, but suddenly there are a huge number of possibilities for high-skilled, active and reactive plays centred around the interaction between you and your pet.

Associated Risks
This proposal increases a Ranger’s dependence on the pet actually carrying out the actions that the player inputs, so it could exacerbate the current situation further.

There could potentially be a great deal of complexity involved in executing the Leash/Toss ability such that your pet actually goes where it should and doesn’t get stuck in terrain or glitch out.

I’ve lost my faith… They know we need buff yet they don’t want to give us a buff because the other professions are to OP and they do not want an 8th OP class (HELL if everybody is OP then nobody is…… ). Our pet is a piece of kitten yet they don’t want to rework it because it takes too much time. They know we don’t want to be a “so called sustainable DPS prof” but they force us to be. They do know we don’t have an active condition remove yet they do not care. They know that our weapon sets are bugged and/or useless but they do not care. They know that our treats are a kittening mess but they do not care. They do know that the most of the ranger community want to BREAK OUT of this bullkitten but they do not care because it’s their game not ours. We have Allie as a clown to get all the cakes while he smiles yet THEY WON’T DO A SINGLE THING TO MAKE THE RANGER BETTER… Maybe we will have +2,5% damage on the axe #1 and we will do 11,3% more damage while downed…

Necro started…

If it isn’t good enough then reroll another MMO… If they don’t care why should I???

I will simply become a billionare, take over ArenaNet and force them to rework the ranger.

Chrispy.5641:

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.

Oh there are plenty of room for ideas, i agree with you… but there is no point in wasting effort and time by writing ideas that have no chance at all of being implemented ( we can’t know what has a chance to be implemented or not until a red says “devs like this idea/that” and then we the player base can go from there and expand on that idea"
… the player base would have a much easier time coming with ideas and balances IF anet would just wake up and tell us exactly how much effort they are willing to put into re-working this class… as of right now, my gut feeling is just band aid fixes, which I am no longer going to even bother with this class if thats all they can do.

as of right now, we have no idea what on earth they want. They claim our class mechanic is broken yet are still sticking with the idea that “this will always be a pet class…. but we won’t fix the pets!!”
How on earth can we, the players make ideas and suggestions when asinine statements are being tossed around like that. They admit its broken but don’t want to fix the core issue, just change around a few numbers??? well how on earth can that help?

There has been bandaid fixes for 1.5 years… I’m don’t like seeing the user base exhaust their efforts coming up with ideas and balances only to be replied with a “nah, we can’t / won’t do that” or just flat out ignored like this entire day..

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

THIS is an amazingly cogent observation.

+1 for Holland.9351’s post.

But I don’t know about Aoe, it feels absolutelly mandatory for WvW, at least.

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

rec’d, +1.
Would love to hear a response to this post lol

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

Also would Love a responce, but seeing as it’s just turning 6pm Seattle time, I guess we are waiting another day. Not to be harsh, but due to the percieved large amount of problems the Ranger has, and the massive amount of input given by users, this is the CDI that should be getting the most red responces. Fractals/Ladders have been getting a lot of Love – though I realise when you are facing a 25 page thread of suggestions it must be daunting.

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

I’ve basically been saying the same thing 10 pages ago, but so much this ^. If the core mechanic (pets) and longbow were fixed, I feel we wouldn’t need a bunch of tweaked numbers in other places.

clint.5681:

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 potion to do so since that isnt her job.

The tread isnt going anywhere atm.

That’s not fair. People are providing a rather hostile environment so that Allie has to watch what she says.

Look what happened when Allie did reply: People fixated on one thing and prattled on and on about permastowing pet in favor of aspects. Now they’re fixating on her usage of “power creep”.

There are certain people here that are so fixated on their own personal goals for the class that they aren’t willing to have a proper discussion and are also preventing one.

I don’t blame Allie for not replying because whenever she does we essentially attack her without having an actual discussion. She’s also the liaison between us and the devs and unfairly takes a lot of the brunt.

That being said, this can’t be a discussion if the devs don’t ask us for feedback on the specific things they’re looking for. It’s too one-way (something more like the Fractals CDI would be wonderful). Some transparency with regards to their short-term goals for the class and what they would like to prioritize would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, I’m sure they have a lot of work themselves and there’s a ton of pages to read through here.

(I have to admit, I am also feeling disappointed. People became excited because we thought Ranger might get some much needed love, but I think Prysin is right about the devs having lost enthusiasm for this thread. This is most likely going to be as underwhelming as the underwater-buffs-patch.)

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.

Anet needs to give some non-PR-spin answer to this basic observation.

(Dons flame-proof suit)

If you want Allie to respond to what you’re saying: say something she hasn’t already responded to.

Some people are doing a good job of that. However, much of the last umpteen pages is criticism stuck on repeat. They’ve already heard that, and it isn’t helping us move toward solutions.

(Chrispy Ideas, part 2)

MORE SURVIVAL AND SHOUT TRAITS

• The Purpose of this Idea is to rework and expand on our current selection of survival and shout traits so that we can have more possible build combinations, and also have builds where we take only survival skills or only take shouts.
• I’m not suggesting any Shout or survival skill rework, only the traits

Changes and Benefits

• Wilderness Knowledge – Survival Skills Recharge Faster. Survival Skills grant Regeneration when used.
  - (They are survival Skills. Shouldn’t they actually contribute to surviving?)

• Expertise Training – Pets deal extra Condition Damage. Survival Skills deal damage.
  - (This skill needs to be able to affect the Ranger in some way, as should all the other pet traits)
  - (Low damage (like what 1 pulse of Bonfire does (32 with a coefficient of 0.1)) on each stack/pulse of Sharpening Stone, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle. Gives morechances for critical hit effects)

• Shout Mastery – Shouts recharge faster. When you use a shout, pets break stun, and are cured of immobilize, cripple, and chill.
  - (If pets are such a large part of our damage, then we need more ways to break them out of control effects, and get them back to dealing damage)

Downsides

• All that extra damage might be too much, and all the extra chances for critical hits might be overkill with some things, such as the Sharpened Edges trait, making Rangers even more annoying than before when it comes to bleed stacking.
• Also, looking at earlier changes I proposed to Troll Unguent, Heal as One, and Rampage as One, it might make those heals even more powerful (see link below)

Discussion

• There is a much more substantial rework of all Ranger Traits, as well as Signets and Opening Strike in this thread :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Trait-Rework-ver-1/3647484
• (I’m just changing a few things around, and migrating it over here, one small piece at a time)
• These traits do also affect the earlier idea I had for making Heal as One/Rampage as One shouts, and Troll Unguent a Survival Skill from this post :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/3694498
• Yes, I am more in favor of smaller ideas and tweaks than complete overhauls to the profession. I know people have asked that before.

Gulesave.5073:

(Dons flame-proof suit)

If you want Allie to respond to what you’re saying: say something she hasn’t already responded to.

Some people are doing a good job of that. However, much of the last umpteen pages is criticism stuck on repeat. They’ve already heard that, and it isn’t helping us move toward solutions.

I hate to say it, but……THIS. You are 100% correct.

(hey, got any extra Flame Proof suits?)

Gulesave.5073:

(Dons flame-proof suit)

If you want Allie to respond to what you’re saying: say something she hasn’t already responded to.

Some people are doing a good job of that. However, much of the last umpteen pages is criticism stuck on repeat. They’ve already heard that, and it isn’t helping us move toward solutions.

we can’t move towards solutions when devs don’t chime in and tell us what on earth they want to do!. we are basically stuck until someone from anet says, “OK we want to go in this direction , now give us feedback on this”

If we get some kind of USEFUL response, than maybe it wouldn’t be upteen pages of critisicm. S
aying pets are broken, we can’t fix them, but we want you to stick with them even though they will continue to be a crutch to the ranger and useless in 95% of the game!

Well than, what on earth is the player base going to respond with here? Why on earth did you make this kind of disaster in the first place?

All we are asking for is what on earth are they trying to plan, that way we can at least give them viable feedback… as of right now, there is absolutely nothing to go on about, there are pages and pages of suggestions and NO serious feedback on any of them ( outside of the aspect suggestion, which btw they basically said stop talking about it because they probably won’t make it happen lol)

Every other CDI that is currently going on are having dev answers pointing the best ideas, guiding the posters to what ideas can be worked on, and we can feel that they are paying attention.

Here we got a couple excuses and only 1 idea to work with (the change the stats in the traits instead of change the traits to different lines) and today we just got no feedback at all.

Rangers always felt neglected and this CDI isn’t helping that feeling at all.

Fellas, Relax.
It’s been twenty four hours for you, but for them, it’s only been the length of a single work day.

Specific Game Mode
Personally I’ve focused most on PvE although I try to stay current on WvW and PvP. This change would of course affect all three aspects of the game.

Proposal Overview
The option for players to avoid pets by embracing the “spirit” of the pet in a new way to add utility, control, and positional advantage while maintaining an actual pet for the “pet class” of GW2. Pets become damage immune mobile utility points and companions that provide positional advantage to benefit from the splitting of characters while no longer attacking and thus giving the ranger back control of all of their damage in situations when pets are not likely to survive. Furthermore, traiting into Beastmaster would have the ability to change pets to attack and take damage, but revert to their “passive utility” form when dead in order to assuage some of the pain from nigh unavoidable pet death in certain situations.

Goal of Proposal
The splitting of Ranger DPS between a pet which is liable to die due to lack of evasion and the limited value of a pet outside of it’s utilities (as evidence by bears being somewhat weak but staying alive through a fair amount). Furthermore, to help define a niche for the Ranger while potential maintaining its image as the pet class. Finally, to add more team utility to the Ranger that is lacking in active team utility (and possibly some active condition cleansing that Ranger’s really need).

Proposal Functionality
I propose that pets work to provide Crowd Control and/or Battlefield control more actively and consistently while moving all of the damage back to the Ranger.
The idea is for pets to provide 2 utilities (potentially 1 family ability and 1 pet specific ability) that the player has direct control over, while eliminating pets as a source of DPS. Pets would be fast-moving control delivery systems with a unique aesthetic while helping to develop the ranger’s niche as a battlefield controller. I propose that pets by default do not attack, however they cannot be targeted and are immune to damage (This would be changed by putting 20 or 30 points into beastmaster at which point the pet becomes what it is now and can attack and provide all of its current functionality). Proposed abilities would be an AoE cripple, immobilize, muddy terrain, poison field, boon strip, knock down, stun, blowback, impassible terrain, heal, water field, might, vulnerability, condition cleansing and possibly more. The idea is for pets to create a second point from which you can use area of effect abilities that is potentially outside of what their normal range would be for other classes in order to assist your party in controlling a fight. While in “astral form” (while not specced into BM) pets would replace F1 with their family specific ability and F3 with a ground targetted “stay put” command that is rescinded upon pressing the key again.
When specced into BM players lose control over the family specific skill (in order to get attack my target) and the “stay put” F3 turns back to “return to me” as it currently is. Speccing into BM would also make the pet targettable and it would act almost identically to how it currently does now, although some skills might be affected by skill rework for control. If a pet dies, rather than mandatory swap the pet goes into “astral form” and functions as a normal unspecced pet does until it’s death timer is up, or the ranger can swap pets as he does currently (if he swaps back before the death timer the pet will still be in astral form).

This change would give Rangers some position advantage (which should be something they get from having a pet) while allowing players to “play without a pet” by ignoring many of the AI issues but still keeping the feeling of the pet class. Furthermore, the pet could now be used to provide some much needed party utility by giving the Ranger control and by not forcing the ranger to split his damage when the pet is liable to die.

Associated Risks
Potential risks include reworking of skills that would affect current players (changing some pet skills) as well as some reworking of traits (which need to be done anyways). Some skills like Search and Rescue might be slightly overtuned if the pet cannot be killed and thus might need to be tweaked based upon whether the pet is in astral form or not (potentially reducing the rate of res or the amount rezzed etc). A fair amount of number tweaking would be required in order to properly balance the ranger and this might lead to FOTM swings (however if some of this is done at the same time as rebalancing of other classes it might not be so bad). Finally, some new animations would likely need to be added (although many can be reused and the pet model could be reused although it would probably need some sort of a recolor/modification to show that the pet was in astral form).

Thanks, and looking forward to any feedback this might get!

Holland.9351:

If the Ranger class it supposed to be a sustained damage class without burst nor area of effect, then its single target damage should be reliable. Ranger damage is very unreliable:

Pet damage output is unreliable. Pets need to path and miss their attacks often.

Ranger long-range damage output is unreliable. All Ranger ranged weapons are projectile-based (Mesmer Greatsword isn’t for example). Meaning, they are countered by a lot of things: projectile reflect and projectile block, this on top of the usual things, like aegis that also prevent non-projectile damage.

Longbow has a long arc and can easily miss its target. It also does less damage at short range, so neither in short nor long range is the longbow reliable in dealing damage.

So no, Ranger does not have sustain unless its attack can hit their targets reliably. Pets and ranged weapons can’t. Ranger also has no on-demand condition removal, so their melee damage is also unreliable, since they can’t remove immobilize/chill/cripple, etc.

Ranger is horribly unreliable in dealing damage on a single target. So it can’t be considered a sustained-damage dealing class.

Give the longbow a 100% chance to hit at any range and allow pets to hit on the move 100% of the time. Then you’ll have a sustained damage class. Then you won’t have to add burst, then you wont have to add AoE.

I think this is somewhat accurate, although i think your conclusion is a bit off. Giving longbow 100% chance to hit is a bad idea, nothing in this game should be 100% chance to hit, you should be able to avoid any dmg by movement. Also longbow doesnt need/shouldnt be the highly unavoidable weapon. It should be the weapon of choice for long range damage, and decent control.

that said, to the developers:

many of the changes you have made have taken you farther away from your vision for ranger.

you lowered the effectiveness of quickness, which ranger used to more reliably hit many times over time (sustain)
you lowered the access to quickness by making quickness a GM master trait
by lowering access/effectiveness of quickness you also made it less likely pets would be able to hit (faster animations increase chance they can hit)
you lowered pets dmg, thereby lowering rng sustain, as well one way ranger could be fairly resilient, while still doing decent sustain

ranger resilience has gone down. you lowered access to endurance regen, rng is not heavy armor, nor does it have a lot of defensive traits.
you removed rangers strong condition removal on dodge after beta weekend
you weakened its ability to dodge by lowering endurance regen
you lowered its access to protection through dodge via lowering endurance/vigor

a lot of the small changes you guys have made have taken ranger further away from your goal. Did you really compenstate design wise for these changes, in keeping with your vision of ranger play?

And lets be perfectly honest here. You simply must make pets more responsive, and more able to hit moving targets. Even if this is not a small change, it must happen(budget the time/devs). You can never balance or fix rangers role, or design its sustain, if pets are not reliable.
If you really decide its impossible, you will unfortunately have to marginilize the pet, and essentially remake the class. This really isnt something you can work around.
It would be a good idea to decide which of these is more feasible for ranger before you do to much design, because which path you as developers choose, totally changes what type of changes ranger needs.

Orpheal.8263:

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 >.>

This makes absolutely no sense. The Ranger is the one class where a Rifle fits in perfectly. Every single aspect of their design cries out “Hunter.” They have a pet as a hunting partner, they sets traps and use poison to catch their prey, and they use natural springs for healing (basically living off the land). How people feel that a great sword or staff fits into that mechanic, but a Rifle doesn’t, I have no idea.

videoboy.4162:

Orpheal.8263:

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 >.>

This makes absolutely no sense. The Ranger is the one class where a Rifle fits in perfectly. Every single aspect of their design cries out “Hunter.” They have a pet as a hunting partner, they sets traps and use poison to catch their prey, and they use natural springs for healing (basically living off the land). How people feel that a great sword or staff fits into that mechanic, but a Rifle doesn’t, I have no idea.

Basically the firearms represent the shift from a natural world to a industrial world and that kind of shift is antagonist to nature.

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

videoboy.4162:

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

They’re Hunters, Druids, and Beastmasters all in one! Little too much emphasis on the beastmaster, but still….

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

They’re Hunters, Druids, and Beastmasters all in one! Little too much emphasis on the beastmaster, but still….

The only things they have, that come remotely close to druidic roots are the spirits. That might make up a 1/4 of their abilities. The other 3/4 falls reliably under Hunter. They’re actually very similar to a more historical version of Native Americans (I’m sure other Native groups could fit this as well) and even they took up the rifle once it became available.

saved in a .txt for maybe in a few days… I found it to negative and maybe not entirely fair in retrospect (aka. after taking some time away from my computer)

videoboy.4162:

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

They’re Hunters, Druids, and Beastmasters all in one! Little too much emphasis on the beastmaster, but still….

The only things they have, that come remotely close to druidic roots are the spirits. That might make up a 1/4 of their abilities. The other 3/4 falls reliably under Hunter. They’re actually very similar to a more historical version of Native Americans (I’m sure other Native groups could fit this as well) and even they took up the rifle once it became available.

oh I’m not against Rifle for Rangers (anymore), but seriously, having a focus, an entire traitline called “Nature Magic” isn’t enough to be called Druid?

And also, There is a very big difference between dropping a person at 300+ yards by making a sucessful headshot, and sneaking up to 50 yards of an animal before taking aim. For that reason, I say that ‘Marksmanship’ is also not the same as ‘Hunter’.

There’s a reason why Rangers arent called Hunters. For one Thing, Hunters just sounds weak and lame. For another, we do alot more things than hunting (of which, we actually do very little of in this game). Atleast let our name sound cool!

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

They’re Hunters, Druids, and Beastmasters all in one! Little too much emphasis on the beastmaster, but still….

The only things they have, that come remotely close to druidic roots are the spirits. That might make up a 1/4 of their abilities. The other 3/4 falls reliably under Hunter. They’re actually very similar to a more historical version of Native Americans (I’m sure other Native groups could fit this as well) and even they took up the rifle once it became available.

oh I’m not against Rifle for Rangers (anymore), but seriously, having a focus, an entire traitline called “Nature Magic” isn’t enough to be called Druid?

And also, There is a very big difference between dropping a person at 300+ yards by making a sucessful headshot, and sneaking up to 50 yards of an animal before taking aim. For that reason, I say that ‘Marksmanship’ is also not the same as ‘Hunter’.

There’s a reason why Rangers arent called Hunters. For one Thing, Hunters just sounds weak and lame. For another, we do alot more things than hunting (of which, we actually do very little of in this game). Atleast let our name sound cool!

Haha, I get why they’re not called Hunters, I’m just saying that they lean much closer to that part of the spectrum, than they do towards the Druidic side.

I don’t really think the name of a Trait Line is a good determination of the role a class plays. I mean, the Elementalist has the Arcane trait line and Mesmers have one called “Chaos” but you wouldn’t really use those words as role descriptors. =)

A good ‘alternative’ name for the Ranger would have been ‘Woodsman’, it would go well with other weapons, besides the bow. And would also warrant for various nature entuned skills. Obviously it would not have changed the longing for some to have a rifle on the Woodsman, as it would still imply some form of hunting…

videoboy.4162:

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

But they’re Hunters, not Druids, so that’s not really a strong reason.

They’re Hunters, Druids, and Beastmasters all in one! Little too much emphasis on the beastmaster, but still….

The only things they have, that come remotely close to druidic roots are the spirits. That might make up a 1/4 of their abilities. The other 3/4 falls reliably under Hunter. They’re actually very similar to a more historical version of Native Americans (I’m sure other Native groups could fit this as well) and even they took up the rifle once it became available.

oh I’m not against Rifle for Rangers (anymore), but seriously, having a focus, an entire traitline called “Nature Magic” isn’t enough to be called Druid?

And also, There is a very big difference between dropping a person at 300+ yards by making a sucessful headshot, and sneaking up to 50 yards of an animal before taking aim. For that reason, I say that ‘Marksmanship’ is also not the same as ‘Hunter’.

There’s a reason why Rangers arent called Hunters. For one Thing, Hunters just sounds weak and lame. For another, we do alot more things than hunting (of which, we actually do very little of in this game). Atleast let our name sound cool!

Haha, I get why they’re not called Hunters, I’m just saying that they lean much closer to that part of the spectrum, than they do towards the Druidic side.

I don’t really think the name of a Trait Line is a good determination of the role a class plays. I mean, the Elementalist has the Arcane trait line and Mesmers have one called “Chaos” but you wouldn’t really use those words as role descriptors. =)

Arcane Mage and Chaos Mage? They work!

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.

It has become clear that there is a wide difference in the philosophical design of the Ranger between Anet and the players (and other groups of players, and other groups of players). In order for this thread to remain productive, we really need Anet to step in with a comprehensive statement towards where they see the class going:

• How does the Ranger fit into PvE groups? What should make a group want to bring a Ranger to a dungeon / fractal?
• How does the Ranger fit into large WvW groups? What should make a group want to bring Rangers in their zerg?
• How does the Ranger fit into small / solo WvW groups? What should make a Ranger stand-out in small scale combat?
• Where and how should the Ranger excel, and how does the class-mechanic facilitate this?

Furthermore, we (the players) need input on which ideas are in tune with your design intent. I’m sure over 50% of the ideas in this thread are far outside of Anet’s vision of the class. We need direction in order to provide valuable feedback.

As to the quote above, it was made over a full day before this post, and yet the discussion has not really progressed since. Devs, please try to set some focus on this discussion during Friday’s work day so it does not devolve or die out over the weekend.

Chrispy.5641:

Arcane Mage and Chaos Mage? They work!

Hey! The word “mage” is nowhere in those Trait Line names!

BondageBill.4021:

We need direction in order to provide valuable feedback.

I fully support your notion, and these questions are extremely valid and valuable, because currently I feel like the vision of the ranger and GW2 as a game are so far apart that I question if they are even compatible. Maybe with answers to these questions I can better understand how Anet themselves view how the Ranger fits into GW2.

BondageBill.4021:

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.

It has become clear that there is a wide difference in the philosophical design of the Ranger between Anet and the players (and other groups of players, and other groups of players). In order for this thread to remain productive, we really need Anet to step in with a comprehensive statement towards where they see the class going:

• How does the Ranger fit into PvE groups? What should make a group want to bring a Ranger to a dungeon / fractal?
• How does the Ranger fit into large WvW groups? What should make a group want to bring Rangers in their zerg?
• How does the Ranger fit into small / solo WvW groups? What should make a Ranger stand-out in small scale combat?
• Where and how should the Ranger excel, and how does the class-mechanic facilitate this?

Furthermore, we (the players) need input on which ideas are in tune with your design intent. I’m sure over 50% of the ideas in this thread are far outside of Anet’s vision of the class. We need direction in order to provide valuable feedback.

As to the quote above, it was made over a full day before this post, and yet the discussion has not really progressed since. Devs, please try to set some focus on this discussion during Friday’s work day so it does not devolve or die out over the weekend.

This should have been in the very first post, starting up the CDI. Not the vague, game mission statement description of the ranger we got.

blud.8174:

clint.5681:

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 potion to do so since that isnt her job.

The tread isnt going anywhere atm.

That’s not fair. People are providing a rather hostile environment so that Allie has to watch what she says.

Look what happened when Allie did reply: People fixated on one thing and prattled on and on about permastowing pet in favor of aspects. Now they’re fixating on her usage of “power creep”.

There are certain people here that are so fixated on their own personal goals for the class that they aren’t willing to have a proper discussion and are also preventing one.

I don’t blame Allie for not replying because whenever she does we essentially attack her without having an actual discussion. She’s also the liaison between us and the devs and unfairly takes a lot of the brunt.

That being said, this can’t be a discussion if the devs don’t ask us for feedback on the specific things they’re looking for. It’s too one-way (something more like the Fractals CDI would be wonderful). Some transparency with regards to their short-term goals for the class and what they would like to prioritize would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, I’m sure they have a lot of work themselves and there’s a ton of pages to read through here.

(I have to admit, I am also feeling disappointed. People became excited because we thought Ranger might get some much needed love, but I think Prysin is right about the devs having lost enthusiasm for this thread. This is most likely going to be as underwhelming as the underwater-buffs-patch.)

I think you completely missed my point which was she simply isnt a class designer or the guy thats gonna be in charge of fixing rangers. So at the end of the day as much as she would like to give yes or no answer or discuss changing the vision of the ranger class, she cant without having to go talk to the people with the answers.

Shadelang.3012:

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.

I, in particular, like the idea of having the pet and ranger sharing a symbiotic bond and being able to share boons in spite of distance and allowing the ranger to be able to contribute through taking advantage of the boons of the party and using it to increase the capability of the group as a whole. If it were up to me, I’d take it a step further and have an additional trait allowing the ranger to grant boons to the party from a distance using pet as the origin of the boons giving the ranger the ability to be a rear guard support character if they so choose.

Have to say I am surprised someone saw my post in all of this. Thanks for the support Sevoha I can only hope others feel the same way hahaha.

Ok back to the cdi format please and back to constructive info about rangers, what they need, how they can get it, and how pets should work! Pets are not going away, it has been set in stone I am sorry if you do not like them but please stop suggesting they should be removed. Suggesting so is only starting a lot of arguments and is also not contributing to improving the ranger class… If we have no mechanic we would be more simpler than the warriors. And we don’t want to go there…

heavyarmoire.3079:

Proposal Functionality

1. Allow the pet to “guard” an area with a function skill similar to, or replacing, “heel,” or ground-target your pet to move to locations, maybe as a utility skill.

Before I reply to this, I’d like to say that I main an engineer and so it may influence my thinking process as far as how to make this work. That said, I want to see Rangers improve since I want the game as a whole to improve and I see a similar problem in pets that I see in turrets. Lack of control. I personally want to see pets be able to move through ground targeting. However, I don’t think it will work with just one button controlling movement unless you also give it control of behavior as well.

What if the ground targeting for movement also gave the pet context for the actions they should take?

1. If a ground target is placed far from both an enemy and the player, then the pet should hold in that spot and not attack unless an enemy is attacking them.
2. If a ground target is placed on top of an enemy, then the pet should attack that enemy and allows for the ranger and pet to deal with two enemies at the same time.
3. If a ground target is placed near the ranger it should remain close to the ranger following the movements closely and only attacking if the ranger or the pet is attacked.

What this means is that now the ranger can control how they engage the character. A trap user can use their pet to herd enemies into traps and turn an area into their own personal domain. A melee character can use their pet to cut off avenues of escape by using their pet to flank. All rangers would have control over moving their pets out of AoE that can be walked out of and/or dungeon hazards.

Yeah, I think I’ve run out of things to say even with the little I’ve said. I like playing my Ranger even if it has its frustrations. I find myself actually rather survivable in solo PvE, I’m sort of useful in some group functions, and the only problem with the pet is its own survivability.

Any of the changes I read, while it might address problems others see, start leading me down to “but I won’t really want to play a ranger anymore” because it starts slotting me into play styles I don’t enjoy. It turns some “odd” weapon functionalities I’ve either learned to work with or leave alone (Work with? Sword. Avoid? Off hand dagger.) into things which I would probably then be expected to use or be forever branded a “noob ranger” for not going for them.

In the last several pages I’ve just seen people beating up on the same issues over and over to the point . . . there’s just no point to discussing anymore. You know what I keep reading in most of the posts? Either the ranger is irrevocably broken and ANet’s designers are incompetent, or the ranger is irrevocably broken and ANet’s designers don’t care.

I said it many pages ago – I don’t feel “broken” playing my ranger. I am a little more squishy than I like but I’m not supposed to tank damage like a warrior or guardian. I don’t do as much damage as the warrior when I was doing guild groups through areas but I could stay up and the pet pulls agro while I battle-res or drop healing springs. I have never felt like I was a burden to the group.

In WvW of course I feel like I’m not as effective or efficient. I am not a big PvP player and over several dozen different games and several different genres of games . . . it’s safe to say I . . . personally . . . cannot reliably play PvP well unless I am*so overpowered* it’s more like “point, click, and they die”. And despite that I don’t feel like I’m a “load” on the field in WvW anymore than I feel I should have saved the $12.95 and not done Booster Draft last Friday.

I think- no, scratch that. I know there are things which can be tweaked to fix some of the issues without ripping everything apart and starting over. “Fixing” the pet is one of them. We don’t need “two pets at once”, nor do we need pets to be 100% accurate with hits, we really need them to fill the damage gap they’re supposed to reliably without keeling over if a Elite/Champion/Legendary/Player looks at them funny. We could probably use some way of getting more control over the pet to micromanage it if the pet is supposed to be our signature mechanic.

Let’s face it, a ranger in GW1 who could micro their pet and had a skill setup to make it work could be a disruptive problem which needed solving instead of an annoyance to be suffered. Can we as a class get back to the point where we need to be responded to instead of just survived?

blud.8174:

That’s not fair. People are providing a rather hostile environment so that Allie has to watch what she says.

Look what happened when Allie did reply: People fixated on one thing and prattled on and on about permastowing pet in favor of aspects. Now they’re fixating on her usage of “power creep”.

There are certain people here that are so fixated on their own personal goals for the class that they aren’t willing to have a proper discussion and are also preventing one.

I don’t blame Allie for not replying because whenever she does we essentially attack her without having an actual discussion. She’s also the liaison between us and the devs and unfairly takes a lot of the brunt.

That being said, this can’t be a discussion if the devs don’t ask us for feedback on the specific things they’re looking for. It’s too one-way (something more like the Fractals CDI would be wonderful). Some transparency with regards to their short-term goals for the class and what they would like to prioritize would be much appreciated. Unfortunately, I’m sure they have a lot of work themselves and there’s a ton of pages to read through here.

(I have to admit, I am also feeling disappointed. People became excited because we thought Ranger might get some much needed love, but I think Prysin is right about the devs having lost enthusiasm for this thread. This is most likely going to be as underwhelming as the underwater-buffs-patch.)

There’s no coherent discussion until the devs acknowledge the facts.

This is the core problem with this class:

There are too many variables to properly balance pets because of the BM line with the number of different pets. (e.g. 30BM stealth Jag vs 0BM bear). As a result they can’t even decide how often a pet should land a guaranteed hit because they don’t know what pet you’ll be using and how deep you’re traiting into BM. The pet damage is constantly in flux.

Because your pets supposedly account for some damage, which is not really set in stone, your ranger weapons’ damage are being low balled. Otherwise, it’ll be grossly overpowerd, like you’d be getting an equivalent of 1.3x the damage vs another class. The total damage as a result is being short changed because pets are unreliable, while weapon damage is nerfed.

Notice what the commonality is for the ususal suggestions:

Perma stow buff, aura aspects buff; bump up damage across the board; eliminating pet damage all together and make them sources of utility; hard capping pet damage to 5% and increasing weapon damage.

They all involve folding the damage back into the toon instead of divesting it to the pet because people who understands this class realize this is not an issue relating to opinions, but rather hard numbers; this class is getting short changed in the damage department.

They’ve rejected giving more control over the pets.

They’ve rejected perma stow.

They’re rejected buffs as being power creeps.

They even do things that are contrary to their own model, like having pet down time. Err, remember that pets were suppose to account for some of the damage that’s why my weapons are not hitting as hard? Why then should there be pet down time at all given the current framework?

This is not a hard problem to solve. It’s a matter of whether they have the will to do it.

Trying to use an AI bot as a main source of damage in a PVP game is a can of worms they should’ve never opened and one that they should move away from if they value the future of this game as esport.

I can’t even begin to imagine how silly you’d sound if you want to convince someone unfamiliar with GW2 to watch a spvp match with the current framework. Wait, so you’re not controlling the pet? When the wolf pounced the guy and you stomped him, it was all just a bot that did the work?

That’s the antithesis of skill, balance, or fun.

Oh the Stealth… Since it has no reveal-brake rules, its kind of a godmode when you know how to use it. Even in PVE when mobs still seeing you sometimes…
For us, “Reveal!” shouts/bonuses would be nice to help out the groups.
If we would be able to use pet to reveal and lock stealthing on foes, that would be a nice support – and when Dungeons are designed to have stealth using enemies, we would be welcome even there.