Guild Wars 2

(Chrispy Ideas, part 3)
Warning – Wall of Text Incoming!

SIGNET REWORK (PvE, WvW)

• If Rangers draw from nature to support themselves and allies, shouldn’t 1) Signets affect Rangers from the start, and 2) Signets have a way to affect allies?
• The Problem is that signets are kind of powerful to just give to the Ranger by default (even the Ranger), so this proposal aims to tone down the effects of signets slightly, while also making them useful to give to allies.
• This Proposal also aims to create more synergy between signets and traitsm like how the Enlargment trait and Moment of Clarity trait works now.
• This proposal aims to Increase Rangers ability to sustain damage over longer periods of time, increase survival, and increase ability to remove conditions all at the same time.

CHANGES AND BENEFITS (Signets)
Signet of the Hunt
Passive – Grants increased movement speed for you and your pet
Active – Grants 5 Attacks of Opportunity for you and your pet
Active(traited) – Grants 5 Attacks of Oportunity to you, your pet, and allies.

Signet of the Wild
Passive – Grants health regeneration to you and your pet.
Active – Grants 5 Wild Strikes to you and your pet, dealing more damage. You also gain stability.
Active(traited) – Grants 5 Wild Strikes to you, your pet, and allies, dealing more damage. You also gain stability.

Signet of Renewal
Passive – Cures a condition every ten seconds
Active – Grants 5 stacks of Renewal for you and your pet. If you are stunned, this skill breaks stun and you are granted 4 stacks of renewal instead.
Active(traited) – Grants 5 stacks of Renewal for you, your pet, and allies. If you are stunned, this skill breaks stun and you are granted 4 stacks of renewal instead.

Signet of Stone
Passive – Improves toughness for you and your pet.
Active – Grants 5 stacks of Stone Skin to you and your pet.
Active(traited) – Grants 5 stacks of Stone Skin to you, your pet, and allies.

CHANGES AND BENEFITS (New effects)
Attack of Opportunity – Your Next attack deals 5% more damage, + 1% more damage for each stack of vulnerability on foe. (This effect deals much less than the original attack of opportunity, but it can potentially deal much more damage spread across the 5 attacks of opportunity, because the maximum damage increase could potentially be 30%. It also makes removing Vulnerability more urgent, which right now is pretty weak condition with zero cause for alarm.)(Between Signet of the Hunt and Moment of Clarity, you could potentially get 10 Attacks of Opportunity at a time, unless there are other signet sharing Rangers around. Pets can get up to 15 because of GS#5)

Wild Strikes – Your Attacks deals 10% more damage, + 1% more damage for each condition on foe. (maximum damage boost from this effect is 22%)(Stacks 5 times when using Signet of the Wild, and stacks 5 times when using the Enlargement trait(which itself uses signet of the wild), both skills of which also grant stability for 6 seconds)(This skill is actually quite a bit weaker than the original Signet of the Wild, but I believe it was necessary to make signet sharing possible)

Renewal – Your attacks cure conditions and heal you. (1 condition per attack)(healing should be low, like what you get on life steal effects(for example, 325 per hit with Omnomberry Ghost food, maybe lower than that))(Stacks 5 times when using Signet of Renewal, and stacks 5 times when using Oakheart Salve, making for 10 stacks total)

Stone Skin – You take 100% less damage when struck. (Stacks 5 times when using Signet of Stone. Also Stacks 5 times when traited with Instinctual Bond, making for 10 stacks total on you or your pet)

(Continued in next post)

(Continued)
CHANGES AND BENEFITS (Traits)
M-IV – Signet Mastery – Reduce Recharge on Signets(10%). Passive effects of Signets are 10% stronger. (Goal is to make it more desirable to take than what is almost always taken (stady focus))
M-IX – Beastmaster’s Might – Passive effects of Signets are 10% stronger. Activating a signet grants might to you and your pet. (Goal is the same as Signet Mastery)
M-XI – Signet of the (beast)Master – Active effect of Signets are granted to Allies.

S-XII – Moment of Clarity – Use Signet of the Hunt when interrupting a foe. Daze and stun durations you inflict last longer.

WS-VIII – Oakheart Salve – Use Signet of Renewal for you and your pet when you suffer from a number of conditions. (3 conditons?)

N-X – Enlargement – Use Signet of the Wild when your health drops below the threshold.

Instinctual Bond – When you are downed, your pet gains quickness and 5 stacks of Stone Skin. When both of your pets are downed, you gain quickness and 5 stacks of Stone Skin.

DOWNSIDES

• None that I can see yet, except for the attacks of opportunity. that could be extremely powerful when used in a group that knows how to sustain 25 stacks of vulnerability, but its that synergy between players that we need more of anyways.

DISCUSSION

• There is a much more substantial trait and signet rework in this thread ::: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Trait-Rework-ver-1/3647486
  *I’m just making small changes and moving it here piece by piece.

“I Will Avenge You”

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Reintroduce IWAY

Goal of Proposal
Ranger’s pet die too often in dungeons and WvW and some skills don’t help keeping the pet alive (Signet of Renewal, “Protect Me”). The idea is to introduce a buff for the ranger when the pet die that increase it’s dps to compensate for the DPS loss. Dungeonners and WvW zergers could use this buff since the pet dies often and PvP players could intentionnaly make the pet die with “Protect Me” or Signet of Renewal to benefit from this buff, fixing a bit of the “pet not hitting reliably” problem.

Proposal Functionality
“I Will Avenge You” should be a passive Shout trait that benefit from other shout traits. It should activate whenever the pet die for a limited time with an ICD. The skill is cancelled when switching pet or when pet comes back to life. A simple buff to damages and conditions damages should to the trick.

Associated Risks
Might be disturbing to willingly kill the pet for more damages but there are already skills to do it, might as well get a benefit from them. It also didn’t matter that much in GW1.

Aria.5940:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Edge-of-Extinction-and-Frozen-Soil-please/

Just came across this thread while looking through the forums. A great idea for making rangers viable in large scale WvW.

A couple of our pet utilities could be easily replaced by this. (“guard” for instance should be a basic pet functionality, not a utility)

This is what’s so dangerous about Rangers and it makes them hard to balance. If they put up GW1 skills without any tweaks or changes in GW2, you would find that most of them are global skills that affects everyone. In some game modes like WvW everyone would welcome a Ranger with open arms, to other game modes, maybe not so much. But I love these skills! I miss seeing them.

Edge of Extinction bomb

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Edge_of_Extinction

maddoctor.2738:

Before offering advice on how to “fix” pets, or discussing ways on how to fix them, let’s have a look at how Anet tried to fix the pet problem so far.

According to the devs, they didn’t want to buff ranger pets too much because they were very powerful “in certain situations”. The “best” update, that I can think off, that did something for the pets was the health boost update, almost every pet got more extra health, so let’s see how that “solution” helped fix the pet problems or not.

There are a few areas of the game that we can discuss about.
Open World PVE, roaming around the map, exploring, gathering doing random events and achievements.
Dungeons/Fractals
World versus World (large scale)
sPVP and also small scale WvW

So how did the only major Ranger update since release (buffing pet hit points) helped pets in the above 4 sections?

Open World PVE: Pets used to be strong here, the update made them somewhat stronger
Dungeons/Fractals: even if they triple the health of pets they would still be completely useless. There is no reason for pets to exist in Dungeons/Fractals, with or without the health update.
World vs World (large scale): instead of getting killed in 0.1 of a second, they die in 0.2 seconds, horay for progress. No, still useless.
sPVP, small scale WvW: The health update made the pets somewhat stronger in these two aspects of the game, at least it made them harder to kill while the ranger uses their downed skill3 and is underwater (can’t stomp)

So, the single change that has happened since release to buff pets in some considerable way, the health update, did absolutely nothing to make pets even useful in parts of the game that they were useless (hint: health won’t make them better) while buffing them, arguable but they did get some kind of buff, in situation were the pets were stronger…. So the whole health update was simply pointless and had the complete opposite effect of it’s purpose.

Also, I’ve seen in numerous patch notes so called “improvements to pet F2 skills”, honestly I haven’t seen any kind of difference, they used to be useless and they still are.

Pets only got a health boost in PvE as far as I know. My Stalker still has 14,000 or so health in WvW, but has 24,000 or so in PvE.

I fear that they will only care about pets and just a minimal on the player character itself… Anyway, who else hates recharges on weapon skills as I do?

AEFA.9035:

Aria.5940:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Edge-of-Extinction-and-Frozen-Soil-please/

Just came across this thread while looking through the forums. A great idea for making rangers viable in large scale WvW.

A couple of our pet utilities could be easily replaced by this. (“guard” for instance should be a basic pet functionality, not a utility)

This is what’s so dangerous about Rangers and it makes them hard to balance. If they put up GW1 skills without any tweaks or changes in GW2, you would find that most of them are global skills that affects everyone. In some game modes like WvW everyone would welcome a Ranger with open arms, to other game modes, maybe not so much. But I love these skills! I miss seeing them.

Edge of Extinction bomb

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Edge_of_Extinction

I could totally see those spirit effects back in GW2 as Environemental Effects for WvW/PvP (like Mystlock Instabilities for fractal), would add some real spices to those matchs.

RoyalPredator.9163:

I fear that they will only care about pets and just a minimal on the player character itself… Anyway, who else hates recharges on weapon skills as I do?

As ArenaNet’s vison of the Ranger is one of sustained damage, I think it would make sense for the CDs to either disappear (similar to how thieves use initiative instead of CDs) or for the skills that have CDs have their damage increased so as to NOT be a DPS loss when using them.

Like I said in one of my early suggestions, Ranger weapon skills lack direction and feel confused at best.

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

Could anyone inform me how we got to this CDI topic. I tried looking for a thread that shed some light over the way it got chosen, but I couldn’t find it.

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

ArenaNet has already admitted that an overhaul of the pet is required. They’ve also stated that they don’t have the time to do it.

So now we are stuck in a situation where the class mechanic needs an overhaul but won’t get one. That’s like having a car that needs gas but having no gas money. Putting band-aids on the gas tank isn’t going to help the situation.

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
Change Steady focus
Goal of Proposal
Steady focus (and opening strike) is currently designed around getting high damage at the start of a fight. We do know now that Ranger is not meant to have burst. By changeing the trait so that it gives 10% damage increase when endurance is not full, ranger could use this damage buff in prolonged fights, instead of losing it on the first gapcloser used by the opponent. It would also be more controllable by the player.
Associated Risks
Longbow zerker players crying on the forum.

mtpelion.4562:

I think it would make sense for the CDs to either disappear (similar to how thieves use initiative instead of CDs) or for the skills that have CDs have their damage increased so as to NOT be a DPS loss when using them.

Like I said in one of my early suggestions, Ranger weapon skills lack direction and feel confused at best.

Well that is what my [iR] design is half about, changing the CDs to Initiative like Stamina/Endurance, which can be used for dodges too. My fingers are crossed…

I’ve had a small idea that I’ve decided to jot down, put in a bottle, and toss into the sea:

A Skirmisher to be Respected
If Rangers are intended to skirmish, to gradually overcome opponents through sustained damage, they need to be able to counter their target’s ability to survive expended periods through healing. The most obvious step in the direction is to give Rangers the tools to deliver extremely high Poison up-time, to inflict the -33% healing and ensure the target will have difficulty outlasting the master of outlasting. Poison has already been noted as a theme that could strongly tie to several of the Ranger Trait lines. Look for opportunities to add Poisoned to more of their weapon skills, utilities, or through traits.

It’s even been suggested Rangers should somehow be better poisoners than most classes. But how?

To continue to build on skirmishing as an effective tactic, rangers need to be able consistently remove or even corrupt the Regeneration boon on their targets…
Fight a Ranger, no Regen for you. Period.

The two forms of poisoning could even be directly linked with a trait like~

Nature’s Venoms: Each time you Poison an opponent, you also corrupt their Regeneration boon if present.

Possibly as a master tier trait in Wilderness Survival. With no other changes this would immediately make the Ranger’s Sword, Dagger, and Shortbow skills far more effective at whittling targets down by blocking one of the major avenues for outlasting sustained damage threats.

Thank you for opening the bottle and reading the enclosed note .

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

you can’t compare what buffing a skill/trait does to a warrior… there class mechanic is perfectly fine and viable….

as of right now, rangers don’t have a class mechanic at ALL. this requires an overhaul….not some band aid fixes… its been band aid fixes for nearly 2 years dude and its still the most broken class in the game… if that doesn’t scream “I NEED AN OVERHAUL” I don’t know what does.

Specific Game Mode: PvE

Proposal Overview:
Improvements to ranged in terms of longbow and combo fields.

Goal of Proposal:
Make ranged as desirable as melee.

Proposal Functionality:

Longbow ideas:
1. Make damage the same regardless of distance for #1 ability, Long Range Shot, and balance for that consideration.
2. Add torment to longbow. #4 ability makes sense, Point Blank Shot. It pushes back the enemy so they’d have to move back all the while suffering from torment.
3. Create a mechanic where your ranged damage builds up over time to match up with melee damage. You can’t just do insta-melee level damage so it wouldn’t be unfair. This could be done through a stacking buff or debuff for instance or flat out increasing the damage as time goes on. It can’t be something that can be quickly done on weapon swap and then back to melee weapon. You need to devote time to using ranged weapon. For instance, you could make the auto-attack be a chained skill.
4. Add trait, skill or utility that allows you to deal shrapnel-like damage with the longbow so that you can do melee-like levels of cleave damage as well.

Combo field:
Reduce the blast finisher efficacy of all types in half. Make it so that ranged weapons have the ability to proc the blast finisher effect not only on the field but on the character as well. This would allow for ranged to uniquely provide for the same functionality that many players currently take advantage of while stacked up in melee. It’d also provide the option for ranged players to benefit from beneficial combo fields too without having to run into melee.

Associated Risks:

Longbow ideas:
1. I don’t really like this idea since it removes the flavor of the weapon. I don’t see any major risks to it though since the damage would be balanced probably to be what the longbow does for damage at mid-range currently.
2. It could be too powerful with the right build I suppose. I just like the idea of torment on bows ever since I’ve seen the Toxic Assassins using that condition.
3. This could disincentivize the use of melee if range could do just as well. It’d be important to have fights that punish ranged, though that’d be difficult to do.
4. Same as 3, though it could be balanced to still have less damage overall but at least allow for some level of efficacy. Again, not an idea I particularly like for bows since I don’t generally think of a bow hitting multiple targets in an AoE fashion for normal attacks. Piercing arrows as they are at least makes some sense.

Combo field:
People would still stack in melee, which could make longbow damage in particular pretty poor. At least there’s a chance for ranged weapon usage though. The huge design drawback is that it’d take a lot of reworking ranged weapon skills for all professions to take advantage of this.

mtpelion.4562:

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

ArenaNet has already admitted that an overhaul of the pet is required. They’ve also stated that they don’t have the time to do it.

So now we are stuck in a situation where the class mechanic needs an overhaul but won’t get one. That’s like having a car that needs gas but having no gas money. Putting band-aids on the gas tank isn’t going to help the situation.

While I do appreciate your update on the state of the CDI thread, I didn’t mention class mechanic at all. And I am one of the people who thinks that ranger doesn’t need an overhaul. An overhaul will result in bug fixes that destroy more builds than come to life due to the overhaul. Some people have the misconception that Longbow autoattack needs more damage, or that permastow would solve anything. This is not aimed at you mtpelion, just sayin’ that rangers need to sort out their heads as well…

nagymbear.5280:

mtpelion.4562:

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

ArenaNet has already admitted that an overhaul of the pet is required. They’ve also stated that they don’t have the time to do it.

So now we are stuck in a situation where the class mechanic needs an overhaul but won’t get one. That’s like having a car that needs gas but having no gas money. Putting band-aids on the gas tank isn’t going to help the situation.

While I do appreciate your update on the state of the CDI thread, I didn’t mention class mechanic at all. And I am one of the people who thinks that ranger doesn’t need an overhaul. An overhaul will result in bug fixes that destroy more builds than come to life due to the overhaul. Some people have the misconception that Longbow autoattack needs more damage, or that permastow would solve anything. This is not aimed at you mtpelion, just sayin’ that rangers need to sort out their heads as well…

Well, considering a Ranger’s burst does 22K while a Warrior’s burst does 40K with the exact same stats…that alone should be the clue light, considering that means we do 45% less damage with our burst than a Warrior.

SkiTz.4590:

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

you can’t compare what buffing a skill/trait does to a warrior… there class mechanic is perfectly fine and viable….

as of right now, rangers don’t have a class mechanic at ALL. this requires an overhaul….not some band aid fixes… its been band aid fixes for nearly 2 years dude and its still the most broken class in the game… if that doesn’t scream “I NEED AN OVERHAUL” I don’t know what does.

Yes I can totally compare the warrior buffs to our pet mechanic. If pets would reliably hit moving targets all the time like some people suggested, do you have any idea what beastmaster builds would do to people? Imagine jaguar hitting all the time, having amazing survivabilit in small scale battles. That is 1 flipping change. 1 change can make stuff a lot more useful. Stealth on hunter’s shot says hi…

nagymbear is right. The difference of Warrior and Ranger burst is waaaay huge.
WE MEANT TO BURST IF WE WANT TO. As anyone else!

Otherwise, ex. warriors have Adrenaline for additional burst.
For us, pets do the sustain damage. Its acceptable.

Allie Murdock.8152:

barabajaga.7652:

I know that im out of topic here and not using the format proposal and i apologize for it ,but before posting any ideas about the ranger and having into consideration that this will be read by some dev ,i will like to ask something :

Would you ever (or have you) considered the removal of the pet ,knowing how borked the ai is ,and as anet says ,it can not be reworked because its tied to mob ai?

Or would you consider split the class in to two, ranger/beastmaster ,and rework the pet ai from the ground.

Again sorry for the offtopic and thx for any possible answer.

Removing the pet was something that was discussed in initial design of the class, but it is such an integral part of the Ranger’s design and philosophy.

There might be some ways that we can redesign the pet and it’s AI, but those are big projects. For the time being, we are happy to take any suggestions regarding the pet.

I played Ranger at the “Meet and Greet” hosted by ArenaNet at ComiCon in 2011 at the Hard Rock Hotel and got to talk to Colin about the direction of Ranger Pet AI because I mained a Ranger for many years in PvP in GW1. I was concerned about it then and he said you guys were working on a solution for the AI. The fact that you guys still consider the pet to be “integral” is concerning. It doesn’t work. I abandoned my Ranger as my main in this game because of it. You can not spec Beast Mastery for the most part because if your pets die or you have cool down you are useless in a fight.

We need specs where we don’t have to bring a pet. We need a spec where if we bring a pet, when we dodge, so does the pet. It won’t be OP because if I dodge when I am not in harm’s way, but my pet is, I am still using energy to do so.

I am doing my best here to be as calm as possible and I haven’t posted in this CDI because the class is so dear to me.

The integral part of the pet needs to be dropped. If that isn’t done, then the mentality that you will alienate people by giving us a ton of control options over the pet needs to change. Rangers need more control or the Ranger needs the ability to spec without a pet.

The Active (F2) Pet skills
PvE
Proposal Overview
Lower (or in some cases removing) the activation time on the Active Pet Skills
Goal of Proposal
Mostly a quality of life improvement
Proposal Functionality
The are numerous active pet skills (mostly the group buffs) that have (when compared to similar functioning skill of other profession) long activation time/or are coupled with a long animation. Mighty roar is good example, why would what is basically the pet “shout”ing take a 3 second activation time.
Associated Risks
Loss of the ability to counter the pet skills effected by this change. (should be a minimal issue as the pet active have a much longer cool down and lower duration in the case of boons granted by active pet skills)

nagymbear.5280:

While I do appreciate your update on the state of the CDI thread, I didn’t mention class mechanic at all. And I am one of the people who thinks that ranger doesn’t need an overhaul. An overhaul will result in bug fixes that destroy more builds than come to life due to the overhaul. Some people have the misconception that Longbow autoattack needs more damage, or that permastow would solve anything. This is not aimed at you mtpelion, just sayin’ that rangers need to sort out their heads as well…

I inferred that you were talking about the class mechanic since that’s where most of the overhaul suggestions have been directed, sorry if that wasn’t what you meant!

I do think that our weapon skills need some definition as they feel confused at times (we have shortbow as the Ace of condition damage and then a hodge-podge of Jacks), and our traits certainly need help as well. I’m not going to call for a full out overhaul of those though as I do believe that they are manageable as tweaks that give each weapon a clearer purpose.

Pets need the overhaul for sure though, as they are something we have to overcome rather than something that complements our class.

This thread is sinking faster than the Titanic.

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

Apart from the last sentence which I left out, and based upon my own experience as a long time GW player, I will have to agree with you (and I try and remind myself of this while my emotions run up) … then again, I also largely agree with some other people above here that responded to your plea.

One of the things that could really help the ranger is the implementation of some of the horizontal and vertical progressions suggestions. Mainly:
- Add two choice skills on the #2 and #4 slots of weapons. Which could open up the ranger to gain more viable builds in different proficiencies.
- Add ‘specialisation’ trees to the professions, these would be a branching tree added to all professions and while not being a second profession, would open up the ranger for different viable proficiencies that are mutually exclusive by design.
- Also adding a weapon to each profession, which for the ranger could well be the staff. Could also add an additional proficiency to the ranger.

But all these do need a different approach to the ranger philosophy, this philosophy needs to align with what the game modes in GW2 demands from the Ranger profession. Because if it doesn’t the ranger will still lack behind in the pointed at areas where it is currently not a viable option (LS, WvW, non solo PvE, Dungeons).

And the areas that cause this are the focus on sustainable single target damage (admits various burst damage professions) and hardly any AE, the problems with the Pet, and the weakness of spirits. There are hardly any ‘bandaid’ solutions to these ‘problems’. And thus I fully understand (and share) some of the frustration in this tread. Regarding:
- to ‘keeping priority on AI’ (where a band aid ‘aura’ could take care of this, while still keeping the pet part of the ranger).
- The scare to improve damage due to power creep (where your ‘warrior’ comment seems to be contra dictionary to this notion).
- Where burst damage isn’t being considered, not even on one weapon type, even though the game has hardly any need for this type of damage. It could work, but then the damage of the ranger needs to be increased, which I just pointed at in the previous ‘-’
- Where the ranger should have mainly single target damage, where various game modes (mainly WvW, but also LS more and more, and dungeons as well) don’t have a need for this kind of focus.
- etc…

So, where does that leave this CDI? My current feel and stance is that it wasn’t needed at all. Almost all truly important suggestions were already in the [PvX]Ranger-thread. And to top that, due to other CDI’s running at the same time, this CDI feels like it’s being shoved under the carpet. For which I wouldn’t even think to blame Allie (to make it clear, I do not want to blame anyone, humans are humans mistakes get made, etc. ), but at the same time it has been more then clear where the ranger fails, and it’s size and post frequency could have been seen coming from far away…

Arghore.8340:

nagymbear.5280:

stuff.

more stuff.

So, where does that leave this CDI? My current feel and stance is that it wasn’t needed at all. Almost all truly important suggestions were already in the [PvX]Ranger-thread. And to top that, due to other CDI’s running at the same time, this CDI feels like it’s being shoved under the carpet. For which I wouldn’t even think to blame Allie , it has been more then clear where the ranger fails, and it’s size and post frequency could have been seen coming from far away…

That’s what ANet gets for failing to address these issues that were brought up before the game was even released.

I can only hope that they realize that a Band-Aid fix is not going to cut it.

Maybe they should just lock it out soon as the weekend will probably have it reach 40-50 pages (not a fun prospect to play catch up on)

That way that Monday or Tuesday they could open with a new thread discussion what idea were liked/dislike/not fitting the design they are going for. Maybe give the rangers some heads up on where the profession is heading so the player can make informed choices (on gear reselection, pets to use on content mode of choice, or simply that it is time to re-roll/leave)

nagymbear.5280:

SkiTz.4590:

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

you can’t compare what buffing a skill/trait does to a warrior… there class mechanic is perfectly fine and viable….

as of right now, rangers don’t have a class mechanic at ALL. this requires an overhaul….not some band aid fixes… its been band aid fixes for nearly 2 years dude and its still the most broken class in the game… if that doesn’t scream “I NEED AN OVERHAUL” I don’t know what does.

Yes I can totally compare the warrior buffs to our pet mechanic. If pets would reliably hit moving targets all the time like some people suggested, do you have any idea what beastmaster builds would do to people? Imagine jaguar hitting all the time, having amazing survivabilit in small scale battles. That is 1 flipping change. 1 change can make stuff a lot more useful. Stealth on hunter’s shot says hi…

thats the thing… that 1 change is an overhaul change.. its not something you fix with traits/skills or changing a few intergers.

its an AI mechanic… and our pets are tied with the brain dead AI we see in PvE…I would love to see my pets always hit their targets..LOVE… but the fact anet has already stated they are not going to perform this kind of change means its most likely not going to happen… not to mention the fact pets cannot even survive AOES period because they don’t dodge..which is another AI mechanic lol…

Anet went the lazy path with rangers class mechanic and it’s a glaring one… their refusal to do anything about it after 1.5 years is just unbelievable

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

Yeah, and there were bad changes changes as well like nerfing S&R and Shortbow range.

That being said you can read where I have stated multiple times in the Ranger subforum that I love my Ranger, I just hate (if not loathe) the pet. A Ranger without a pet is not a Warrior. I know. I have both. I have put at least a few hundred hours on my warrior. It is not a Ranger without a pet. If you think that it is I can only surmise that you have never rolled a Warrior… or thief for that matter as that’s just as different (although I do find D/D thief quite fun, just not AS fun as a s+wh ranger). The pet needs an overhaul, not the Ranger. I recently retraited away from the BM build (after trying it for a month after the last round of pet patches) because the pet still does many things I don’t want it to do… like run through red circles then stand in more. A melee ranger does not have the pet control options that a ranged ranger does. If I’m in melee with my 1h sword and I recall pet, guess where it goes? Yup. A few units away and just soaks up aoe or random hits. I’ll use ’em for the buff, which is why I run mostly stalker and red moa, and that is it.

thefantasticg.3984:

Yeah, and there were bad changes changes as well like nerfing S&R and Shortbow range.

That being said you can read where I have stated multiple times in the Ranger subforum that I love my Ranger, I just hate (if not loathe) the pet. A Ranger without a pet is not a Warrior. I know. I have both. I have put at least a few hundred hours on my warrior. It is not a Ranger without a pet. If you think that it is I can only surmise that you have never rolled a Warrior… or thief for that matter as that’s just as different (although I do find D/D thief quite fun, just not AS fun as a s+wh ranger). The pet needs an overhaul, not the Ranger. I recently retraited away from the BM build (after trying it for a month after the last round of pet patches) because the pet still does many things I don’t want it to do… like run through red circles then stand in more. A melee ranger does not have the pet control options that a ranged ranger does. If I’m in melee with my 1h sword and I recall pet, guess where it goes? Yup. A few units away and just soaks up aoe or random hits. I’ll use ’em for the buff, which is why I run mostly stalker and red moa, and that is it.

He gets it. The ranger isn’t tied to his pet. If they remove the pet, they will just destroy the beastmaster aspect, not more.

Specific Game Mode PvX

Proposal Overview
Make significant improvements to both longbow and shortbow damage and utility
Goal of Proposal
Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

Proposal Functionality
Bows are not weapons that need a tweak, they are weapons that are spectacularly poor in damage and effective utility that need serious enhancement to bring them even close to other bow users (warrior longbow, thief shortbow) let alone those other professions actual stronger weapons.

Additionally, bows are not “safe” weapons, there is so much missile and range hate built into the game mechanics that bows are often a massive disadvantage in many situations. That aspect of bows also needs re-balance, it’s a bad mechanic for the game to specifically penalise and target a player for a certain play-style choice.
Associated Risks
There is a risk that rangers might start to become competitive at range, warriors and thieves may have to exhibit some skill to beat a good ranger.

nagymbear.5280:

I’d like to remind everyone who thinks that the Devs don’t listen to the ranger community that the devs did merge spirit traits as asked, they reduced the aftercast on longbow as asked, they inceased the short range damage of longbow autoattack as asked, they added pull to Axe #4 as asked, they adjusted GS#4 second skill to be usable while moving as asked, they increased pet toughness/vitalitiy as asked. And a long while back they also reduced cooldowns on signets as asked (noone remembers 120 second cooldowns?). They don’t give us everything that we ask for, but don’t tell me that Devs don’t listen. That doesn’t make ranger in its current state allright by a long shot, but lets be clear on this.

And for those that think ranger doesn’t need a band-aid solutions, it needs an overhaul, pls look at what 1 buffed skill and 2 changed traits did to warriors.

I don’t think the devs don’t listen to the Ranger community, as you said they did make some changes based on requests. However, after so long, nothing was done to solve the core issues of the pets.

Other than making F2 skills more responsive and giving pets more health, what else have they done for the pets? Nothing. Even so, F2 skills are still completely unreliable despite the devs stating they made them “Better” and pet health didn’t help at all in Dungeons or big scale WvW.

There have been countless proposals on how to improve pets since release and although they do listen to the community on other issues, they’ve done absolutely nothing for the pets.

As for my own suggestion, to make perma stow a reality, it would indeed fix many many Ranger issues. Gathering nodes, moving through mobs in PVE, stealthing with a Thieve’s Shadow Refugee while in combat, and many many more. It’s a very simple “fix” and in my opinion it doesn’t even need to give a buff to the Ranger, just make the bloody thing never appear unless I need it to.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

thefantasticg.3984:

….

He gets it. The ranger isn’t tied to his pet. If they remove the pet, they will just destroy the beastmaster aspect, not more.

Condition removal…. the ranger IS tied to its pet.

SkiTz.4590:

thats the thing… that 1 change is an overhaul change.. its not something you fix with traits/skills or changing a few intergers.

its an AI mechanic… and our pets are tied with the brain dead AI we see in PvE…I would love to see my pets always hit their targets..LOVE… but the fact anet has already stated they are not going to perform this kind of change means its most likely not going to happen… not to mention the fact pets cannot even survive AOES period because they don’t dodge..which is another AI mechanic lol…

Anet went the lazy path with rangers class mechanic and it’s a glaring one… their refusal to do anything about it after 1.5 years is just unbelievable

That’s a lie. They can make different mobs use different AI, for example the profession mobs in the Heart of the Mists seem to be using a completely new AI than the other mobs in the game (they aren’t as “brain dead”) and I doubt they use a different system. Or, if those “clever” mobs DO use a different AI, put that AI onto pets, problems solved.

nagymbear.5280:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

thefantasticg.3984:

….

He gets it. The ranger isn’t tied to his pet. If they remove the pet, they will just destroy the beastmaster aspect, not more.

Condition removal…. the ranger IS tied to its pet.

Well, there is the signet that passively removes one condition every 10 secs and there is HS. I don’t PVP so I don’t use Empathetic Bond… Not to mention how effed up is that to get rid of conditions on myself I have to give them to my “buddy” a.k.a. companion … That’d be like me having an STD then being told to get rid of it I have to give it to my wife. Man, that’s messed up.

In my honest opinion…the ranger doesn’t need any buffs at all, in general it’s pve player that complains about the ranger… but that’s only due to tunnelvision. in pvp/wvw the ranger is a very good class, and has some if not one the best condi removal traits in game and is quite capable of soloing any class. It might not be a toptier pve class…but it’s up to par with the so called toptier classes in pvp/wvw….imo stop the crying and play a little better

I don’t play PVP/WVW so what you say does not apply to me

And tunnel vision? WTF are you talking about? Wait, nevermind. Don’t bother. I can safely assume you do 99.99% s/tPVP.

buffing the ranger in pve, means it gets buffed in pvp/wvw as well. so yea it is relevant

Unless they split the skills/traits, then it isn’t.

Not to mention the way you play a ranger in a dungeon/PVE is not how you play it in WVW/PVP. At least, from my experience, YMMV.

yes, they should have done that from the start….like gw1 implemented after a while…they should have picked that up from start in gw2

Darksteel.8412:

In my honest opinion…the ranger doesn’t need any buffs at all, in general it’s pve player that complains about the ranger… but that’s only due to tunnelvision. in pvp/wvw the ranger is a very good class, and has some if not one the best condi removal traits in game and is quite capable of soloing any class. It might not be a toptier pve class…but it’s up to par with the so called toptier classes in pvp/wvw….imo stop the crying and play a little better

What game are you referring to? Best condition remover’s? on par with toptier classes in pvp/wvw? I only WvW and trust me, you can’t be talking about GW2. Do you even play a ranger? I see you only have two posts on here…EVER. Are you a thief or warrior in disguise trying to keep your free kill?

and let’s be honest here….how hard/difficult is pve…. I mean a full cleric’s staff warrior could solo pretty much anything in pve….. (I know the warrior can’t use a staff)

lol…go watch the higher ranked tpvp teams…they almost always have a ranger in their teams….now play a little better….srsly…the ranger is a very strong class….just practise

They are difficult up to the point that you learn the encounter. Then it doesn’t matter what class you play, honestly… But, after running a dungeon 10000 times, I want to do it as fast as possible and the Ranger is NOT what I pick for that. Hell, I don’t even want to learn the encounter on my Ranger because of the pet.

Darksteel.8412:

yes, they should have done that from the start….like gw1 implemented after a while…they should have picked that up from start in gw2

We can agree 100,000% on this, sir.

yes we can agree on this, also nice to see this doesn’t escalate into a raging “discussion” therefor I will no longer comment on the other guy’s reaction about free kills etc….trust me the ranger in wvw/tpvp owns hard. have a good day

Darksteel.8412:

In my honest opinion…the ranger doesn’t need any buffs at all, in general it’s pve player that complains about the ranger… but that’s only due to tunnelvision. in pvp/wvw the ranger is a very good class, and has some if not one the best condi removal traits in game and is quite capable of soloing any class. It might not be a toptier pve class…but it’s up to par with the so called toptier classes in pvp/wvw….imo stop the crying and play a little better

Ever tried to get a ranger in a WvW guild?
Try and come back to tell me ranger is doing good in WvW…
(hint : on 20+ WvW guilds (from 5 – 35 members) recruiting on my server, only two accept exceptional ranger, all the other indicate “no rangers” or need “high:War/Guard/necro; med:Elem/mesmer; Low:Engineer/thief”…)

Rangers are not to bad in SPvP… that’s it…
It’s enjoyable in other game modes, but not good… and certainly not desired…

no…spvp is irrelevant…I’m talking Tpvp…the highest ranked players in very strong teams I have seen…were either rangers or necro’s

Darksteel.8412:

In my honest opinion…the ranger doesn’t need any buffs at all, in general it’s pve player that complains about the ranger… but that’s only due to tunnelvision. in pvp/wvw the ranger is a very good class, and has some if not one the best condi removal traits in game and is quite capable of soloing any class. It might not be a toptier pve class…but it’s up to par with the so called toptier classes in pvp/wvw….imo stop the crying and play a little better

I laughed out loud at this. The Ranger does fine in WvW? The class consistently ranks 8th out of 8 classes when polled. This very thread exists because the Ranger was voted the class most in need of improvement by nearly a 2:1 margin.

It does fine in sPvP because it’s a condi class and condis are overpowered. It does fine at roaming because it’s the same thing as sPvP overall. It does horrible in every other area of the game. It has no functional power build at all. It doesn’t have a functional pet. Half the utility skills aren’t worth getting without traits.

You clearly have never played the class. I wonder if you even play WvW.

Simple idea Allie and it will take down 2 bird with one stone is to change heal as one to something that reflect back what GW1 Heal as one was so heres my subjestion

Reason:

Pet dies constantly are downed for to long and technicaly heal as one is one of the worst ranger heal in the game.

Change to the mechanic:

Heal as one: heals you and pet for the same amount of damage as before… Revive pet on use with 50% hp. Could also as a bonus proc a boon to the ranger that cause pet strike to leech health for the ranger (or for itself but if for the ranger reduce the base Healing gained by an ammount the same way you did for skelk venom) for a set amount for the next X pet attacks (Aka some additionnal sustain)

Anticipated results

People now have a quick mean to pull back their pet into battle reguardless of pet death (due to heal as one relatively quick recharge cooldown), Heal as one becomes the main beast master ranger Healing ability (effectively scoring itself its own niche in the game) and ranger get to have another efficient source of sustained damage.

Risk

Beside of pet fan using heal as one instead of troll unguant or Healing springs wich are overused in comparison to water spirit and heal as one. This actualy give another viable heal to ranger and if you also give it the life leech an option to deal better pet damage for a few hit or sustain damage. I dont see heal as one as a tool to power creeping. Naturaly ranger who dont care about pet wont take this Healing skill, its give or take.

This not a productive area of discussion.

Dark, If you feel as though the things you’d like to suggest are only minor, than I implore you to suggest those minor things. May I encourage you to use the Suggested Proposal Format outlined on Page1 to address your areas of concern?

Ath, I think it might be better to focus the energy of the thread in more positive directions. I think you’re a very spirited contributor, but this area might not be the best use of your ability to contribute.

You two have alot of energy, let’s put it to good use.