Guild Wars 2

Darksteel.8412:

wvw is 9/10 times about roaming or zerging….roaming, it’s good at roaming and in zerging…who cares what class you are….even upscaled get’s the taste of victory in wvw zergs…spvp is a joke and in tpvp it’s one of the more wanted classes….pve dungeon’s….dude srsly you complain about pve? lmao….get a little better pls

Again, it’s good at roaming because of the same reasons it’s good at PvP. There is no distinction for s/tPvP… the class plays the same and both are dominated by condi bunkers which the Ranger has. Notice any class that has a condi bunker build is leading in s/tPvP?

WvW is where the overwhelming majority of players play and it’s the place the Ranger is least useful by an enormous margin.

If you don’t play the class and don’t play WvW why are you even in this thread posting about things you’re incredibly misinformed about? No one in this thread or ever has denied the simple fact that the Ranger is an amazingly strong dueler. Everyone knows this. As you go beyond 1:1 the Ranger’s worth plummets exponentially till the point it’s a nonfactor like it is in WvW.

Specific Game Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
Slighty More Control Over Pets

Goal of Proposal
Keybinding for Active/Passive

Proposal Functionality
Move F4 from pet swap to setting Active or Passive guarding to F5

Discussion
Many ranged combat situations in game, along with going in and out of combat while evading enemies (also applies to dungeons) aggro that it is faster to press a macro’d button vs moving the cursor down to the control bar to switch from active to passive or vise-versa. This is mainly a QoL improvement that will drastically increase the playability of pets through increased management that is still approachable by the novice player.

Associated Risks
Five year old children might not be able to wrap their mind around the concept of using F1-F5 for the class mechanic vs. using just F1-F4.

This thread needs guidance – quick. Moderation too, but more guidance.

It has, sadly – in my opinion, turned into a mess.

So far there’s a bunch of Rangers sitting in a room – eager to to find/help/try to mend and improve their class, but lack of input and feedback just turns the discussion around on ourselves.

We need feedback and guidance for this to be a Collaborative Development.

Mortec.5684:

This thread needs guidance – quick. Moderation too, but more guidance.

It has, sadly – in my opinion, turned into a mess.

So far there’s a bunch of Rangers sitting in a room – eager to to find/help/try to mend and improve their class, but lack of input and feedback just turns the discussion around on ourselves.

We need feedback and guidance for this to be a Collaborative Development.

if we start flagging posts with the comment “Close Thread until developers make responds” then maybe the mods will do so?

this needs to be a Beast mastery trait….. seriously

Comfort Animal – Removes all conditions from your pet when using a heal skill. Resurrects pet if dead. (50% health)

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Make shouts a more reliable and dependable skill choice. Make Nature’s Voice more than just the “Guard” spamming trait by adding specific ally buffs for each shout skill.

Goal of Proposal
Shouts are generally seen as unreliable. Your pet needs to be alive. Your pet needs to be healthy enough or it will die and waste the shout. The skill can be wasted if the target/ally goes down or rallies before the pet reaches it. Nature’s Voice is seen by many as serving only one purpose… to spam the Guard skill for Swiftness and Regen, and that is too singular a purpose for a grand master trait.

Proposal Functionality
Nature’s Voice: Shouts grant buffs to allies. Guard grants Swiftness and Regen. Protect Me grants Retaliation and Protection. Sic ’em Grants Fury and Might. Search and Rescue grants Stability and Stealth (or Camouflage).

Associated Risks
People taking and using shouts for the traited purpose rather than the original skill purpose (this already happens with Guard). Any additional shouts added will further complicate this trait. The loss of regen/swiftness from the other shouts may be felt by some players. Being able to stealth rez is quite a powerful ability in WvW.

Would it be possible to get a red post for some direction or to at least assure us that this CDI is still being watched by Someone???

Tal Drakkan.3284:

Would it be possible to get a red post for some direction or to at least assure us that this CDI is still being watched by Someone???

Oh I’m sure anet is watching this thread…. the problem is they still don’t have one bit of information for the rangers…. they literally have no plan on how to save this broken class because they are NOT willing to do whats necessary to fix this class other than a few number tweaks and some minor skill/trait bandaid fixes….

Majority of the other classes will be happy with these number tweaks/small buffs…. but rangers are on a completely different level when it comes to how badly broken the class is thanks poor class design.

It will take an overhaul to fix this class and I’m sure right now anet devs are deciding whether or not they actually want to use their resources to fix this class or just put it aside again like the last 1.5 years. My hopes is they actually come on t his thread and respond with a massive summary on their proposed changes…. but I’m not holding my breath on it

I’d love to see some direction by anyone from ArenaNet as to what the next step should be for us players.

Currently, this thread is a train without a conductor. It’s impossible to provide useful feedback; nearly everything presented so far has been shutdown in one way or another.

Where do we stand right now?

With the current state, I’m waiting from this CDI the same thing I expect from every balance update, nothing.
So far my expectations was always fulfilled.

Specific Game Mode
- PvE

Proposal Overview
Giving pets a life bar of 20 health, decreasing 1-3 of them each time they are attacked depending on how much they are hit in a period of time.

Goal Of Proposal
Alternating pet health system, preventing them to die from random 1 hit KO area skills.

Proposal Functionality
Pets will have their health bar divided by 20. While in combat, game will check how much total damage (Condition+Direct) they got in a time period, lets say one second.
If it is too low, lets say below 500, pet won’t lose health.
If it is low, lets say 500-2500, pet will lose 1 health point.
If it is medium, lets say 2500-7500, pet will lose 2 health points.
If it is high, in this case it should be any damage 7500+, pet will lose 3 health points.

So pets can lose maximum of 3/20 of their health per second. Healing also scales similar to this, total healing done on pet for the period will be checked and will increase it’s life bar.

Numbers may change and I’m sure A-Net will balance it out to reward players that still try to protect their pet from harm, and those who don’t care because they won’t die in 2 seconds will eventually have their pet dead.

Associated Risks
Pets may become really dangerous in 1v1 situations.
A new mechanic may confuse people, especially if it becomes something complicated.
Limiting damage done on pet per second could be a better fix.
If not done right, we may have just another passive way to play. (Pet won’t have any risk of death)
This doesn’t really fix the problem with unreliable pet AI.

Aioros.4862:

A detail? I can probably use one hand to count ranger weapons skills that are not a dps loss compared to auto attack.

Yes, a detail. As in, something they should probably look into which is less important than the idea our unique mechanic could use tweaking and another look.

Remember, it’s been stated the pet is intended to be a nice slice of our DPS.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aioros.4862:

A detail? I can probably use one hand to count ranger weapons skills that are not a dps loss compared to auto attack.

Yes, a detail. As in, something they should probably look into which is less important than the idea our unique mechanic could use tweaking and another look.

Remember, it’s been stated the pet is intended to be a nice slice of our DPS.

Keyword: intended.

Flytrap.8075:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aioros.4862:

A detail? I can probably use one hand to count ranger weapons skills that are not a dps loss compared to auto attack.

Yes, a detail. As in, something they should probably look into which is less important than the idea our unique mechanic could use tweaking and another look.

Remember, it’s been stated the pet is intended to be a nice slice of our DPS.

Keyword: intended.

Yes.

So that has to be looked at before we start talking about the DPS of our weapons. Because, as someone stated, if we buff our weapons and then sometime later we get someone who knocked out a pet fix which actually works? We’ll be doing damage out of line with the rest of the classes rather than more balanced with them.

Asurch.9352:

Specific Game Mode
- PvE

Proposal Overview
Giving pets a life bar of 20 health, decreasing 1-3 of them each time they are attacked depending on how much they are hit in a period of time.

Goal Of Proposal
Alternating pet health system, preventing them to die from random 1 hit KO area skills.

Proposal Functionality
Pets will have their health bar divided by 20. While in combat, game will check how much total damage (Condition+Direct) they got in a time period, lets say one second.
If it is too low, lets say below 500, pet won’t lose health.
If it is low, lets say 500-2500, pet will lose 1 health point.
If it is medium, lets say 2500-7500, pet will lose 2 health points.
If it is high, in this case it should be any damage 7500+, pet will lose 3 health points.

So pets can lose maximum of 3/20 of their health per second. Healing also scales similar to this, total healing done on pet for the period will be checked and will increase it’s life bar.

Numbers may change and I’m sure A-Net will balance it out to reward players that still try to protect their pet from harm, and those who don’t care because they won’t die in 2 seconds will eventually have their pet dead.

Associated Risks
Pets may become really dangerous in 1v1 situations.
A new mechanic may confuse people, especially if it becomes something complicated.
Limiting damage done on pet per second could be a better fix.
If not done right, we may have just another passive way to play. (Pet won’t have any risk of death)
This doesn’t really fix the problem with unreliable pet AI.

Wow, that’s a very interesting and out-of-the-box suggestion. While I haven’t considered the associated risks yet myself, I love the basic idea of it. The numbers might need adjusting, otherwise, neato!

SafiMoyo.5130:

Asurch.9352:

snip

Wow, that’s a very interesting and out-of-the-box suggestion. While I haven’t considered the associated risks yet myself, I love the basic idea of it. The numbers might need adjusting, otherwise, neato!

It is somewhat on the same notion as the dodge bar mechanic presented by Nike.**** halve the thread back. Still though I agree with it being an equally viable alternative.

Maybe we those that would like to could come at this from the other side, mainly from the creature AI side of it. I mean, if the creature AI controls the pets, then any changes to the pet AI also effect the creatures. While I am unsure if ‘creatures’ also implies ‘NPCs’, but for that we would need some Anet info… still though, looking at the issue from the creature AI standpoint might give somebody some other idea…

Asurch.9352:

Specific Game Mode
- PvE

Proposal Overview
Giving pets a life bar of 20 health, decreasing 1-3 of them each time they are attacked depending on how much they are hit in a period of time.

Goal Of Proposal
Alternating pet health system, preventing them to die from random 1 hit KO area skills.

Proposal Functionality
Pets will have their health bar divided by 20. While in combat, game will check how much total damage (Condition+Direct) they got in a time period, lets say one second.
If it is too low, lets say below 500, pet won’t lose health.
If it is low, lets say 500-2500, pet will lose 1 health point.
If it is medium, lets say 2500-7500, pet will lose 2 health points.
If it is high, in this case it should be any damage 7500+, pet will lose 3 health points.

So pets can lose maximum of 3/20 of their health per second. Healing also scales similar to this, total healing done on pet for the period will be checked and will increase it’s life bar.

Numbers may change and I’m sure A-Net will balance it out to reward players that still try to protect their pet from harm, and those who don’t care because they won’t die in 2 seconds will eventually have their pet dead.

Associated Risks
Pets may become really dangerous in 1v1 situations.
A new mechanic may confuse people, especially if it becomes something complicated.
Limiting damage done on pet per second could be a better fix.
If not done right, we may have just another passive way to play. (Pet won’t have any risk of death)
This doesn’t really fix the problem with unreliable pet AI.

That is a really creative way to rise the per survivability in high AoE/burst situations that doesn’t involve AI fix, I really liked that idea.

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul. The idiom, ‘whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine’ could be the fundamental game mechanic for a Ranger and her Pet.

In this regard, no distinction should be made in the traits between Ranger or Pet – all traits/signets, etc., should effect both the Ranger and the Pet equally. The Ranger and Pet should have full synergy.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the wild animals she calls friend. The Pets will impart their strengths upon the Ranger and in turn, she imparts all of hers upon them.

This synergistic relationship will make the Ranger greater than the sum of its parts.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the traits from the Ranger’s lineup that are only for the Pet, and rework them so that what effects the Ranger now also effects the Pet.

Bring a new level of synergy between the Ranger and Pet by allowing the pooling of health, the sharing of all boons, and the ability of each animal to impart a mode of defense and/or offense to the Ranger – this relationship exists in harmony, and is in effect all of the time.

Some examples of this:

Bear defense: imparts a bonus to health pool (scalable depending on level)
Bear offense: imparts a terrifying instant roar (stance) causing weakness and fear

Spider defense: imparts a sticky residue, causing an attacker to be immobilized momentarily
Spider offense: increases the potency of all the Ranger’s poisons, along with durations

Hawk defense: imparts a special sight to the Ranger, allowing her to block some missiles
Hawk offense: increases the range of all missiles, with a bonus to crit on the initial shot

Each animal in turn, would offer to the Ranger something unique. These functions could replace the current pet-bar, and be accessible as a normal class function.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet itself to become part of what the Ranger is, the Ranger no longer has to rely on the game server for the other half of her abilities.

Jocksy.3415:

Something to get the thread going back to positive!

What do you like about rangers? What makes you come back to it? In which situations do you choose it over another profession? What would you not want to see changed?
(Edit: Reason for these questions is that we know what we want changed, but it’s interesting and might be useful for devs to know what shouldn’t change / what makes the class unique from the players’ point of view)

I like the reactive gameplay, that weapons have built in defense/offense on demand, that in PvE, I can switch aggro with the pet, in WvW, that I can take camps and towers alone, I like my water fields and my control in zergs, and the support I can give when the spirits and the pet don’t die… I like to stop thieves from stelthing, particularly when we swipe a structure.
I like the defensive/offensive on-demand abilities (SB#3, GS#4)…

Trolling elitist wvw players on SFR and some times its fun play on hard difficulty setting.

i hope devs are reading all of this, and they can work in making this game a better place with liberty and justice for all

SkiTz.4590:

Tal Drakkan.3284:

Would it be possible to get a red post for some direction or to at least assure us that this CDI is still being watched by Someone???

Oh I’m sure anet is watching this thread…. the problem is they still don’t have one bit of information for the rangers…. they literally have no plan on how to save this broken class because they are NOT willing to do whats necessary to fix this class other than a few number tweaks and some minor skill/trait bandaid fixes….

Majority of the other classes will be happy with these number tweaks/small buffs…. but rangers are on a completely different level when it comes to how badly broken the class is thanks poor class design.

It will take an overhaul to fix this class and I’m sure right now anet devs are deciding whether or not they actually want to use their resources to fix this class or just put it aside again like the last 1.5 years. My hopes is they actually come on t his thread and respond with a massive summary on their proposed changes…. but I’m not holding my breath on it

At this rate I’d just like a red to post just to confirm they are reading this and maybe taking it to heart. We haven’t heard anything back in over a day and it’s been stated they don’t work on weekends (the fake patch notes debacle) so I’m just hoping we’ll get some input before Monday so people don’t completely give up hope

In the other CDIs the dev responsible usually make post like “I’m leaving now and I’ll be back tomorrow, bye” a simple post like that would make us feel less neglected.

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.

Actually the health update did not affect WvW. Pets still have pre-update health in WvW.

Specific Game Mode
PvP

Proposal Overview
Give Rangers more resilience.

Goal of Proposal
Rangers are suppose to be the sustain damage class while being resilient. This is Anet’s vision of the class as per Allie said.

The problem is, Rangers are not resilient.

Proposal Functionality
Every ranger weapon set need some sort of reliable defense without needing to trait for it.

GS- Fine
Sword- evades need to break immobilize.
Dagger- evades need to break immobilize.
OH Axe- Fine in resilient factor, but bad weapon set.
Axe- Remove winter’s bite and put cripple in Splitblade. Then add a new third skill that transfer a condition. Axe is not a single target weapon, it is an AoE weapon. Otherwise, add a leap to it. Then the dual axe ranger can charge in and then use Whirling defense or the axe ranger can leap to safety.
Torch- Throw torch now inflict fear because enemy is crying in pain. Bonfire removes Bleeding, chill because Rangers can use fire to burn the skin to stop bleeding and defrost the snow.
Warhorn- Birds give blind. Warhorn 5 removes condition.
Shortbow- Give cripple in quickshot. Keep Crippling shot the way it is.
Longbow- Hunter shot, removed. Reduce Barrage and PBS skill number by 1 and put a new skill in #5: Hunter’s stride. Grants stealth and swiftness.

Huge change in Wilderness survival- Every single one of them needs to remove certain Condition in some ways. Lightning Reflex can remove Immobilize, chill and cripple. Muddy terrain removes bleeding, burning, torment. Quickening Zephyr removes weakness, blind, and confusion. Sharpening stone needs change, should apply cripple AND bleed.

Traps get a grandmaster trait- “Bide Time.” Remove a condition and gain regeneration when a trap is activated. The idea here is that Rangers uses the moment that slowed the enemy to recuperate.

Shouts- Protect me should transfer condition, stuns, damage straight to the pet.

Empathetic bond changed Melandru’s resilience, which reduce 33% condition duration. This is a very ranger like skill. Since Rangers get loads of condition removal, current EB would be a bad trait.

Everything here is about raising survivability and control which rangers lack really hard especially on a resilient class that cannot burst.

Associated Risks
When you buff something, it runs into a chance of being OP. Rangers is suppose to trade burst for survivability which is a good trade. But right now, we trade burst for nothing.

Aggrostemma.1703:

My vision about the ranger:

As the master of the wild we should use our knowledge about the nature. This includes the “traps, spirits and other dirty tricks”. If you attack a ranger you never know what trick they have up in the sleeve. A ranger will not be afraid to use everything to win including cowardly “dodges” or a well placed “kick” between the legs. Yet if you use “poisons” or any other uncomfortable things on them the shake them of because “you cannot live in a forest if a spider’s bite kills you can you?”

Following a ranger should be always a risk. What he has? Traps? Spirits? Is this ground safe or it’s quicksand? Is he using poison?

Goal of Proposal:
Make the ranger the ultimate annoy factor in the game by making the spirits INVULNERABLE and INVISIBLE and move the trap skills a bit around. So the foe never knows what a ranger is up to. Such way the ranger can provide some utility for wvw-zergs. In small scale fight they will be a formidable opponent.

Just imagine: You see the enemy team stack around a ranger… What is there? Healing spirit to keep them up? Or Frost spirit to burst you down if you move closer?

Proposal functionality:

Traps and spirits must be much stronger by default. They must provide at least one more “utility” to overwhelm the opponent:
Flame trap: Blind
Spike trap: Torment
Frost trap: Knock down
Viper’s Nest: Confusion

Make the spirits invulnerable and invisible. Limit them so we can only have one spirit at one time only. Such way the enemy never knows what is he against and this gives the ranger a bit more time to whittle down.

Associated risks:

The "one spirit out only "can limit some “zoo” builds. The heal from the Spirit combined with regen bunker build could be unstoppable. So the healing amount of the Nature’s Spirit must be a bit lower. It’s an elite skill anyway.

What do you think?

In general I find rangers underestimate the benefit of even a single spirit(stone) even at 35%. The only weapon I couldn’t get to have it deliver every protection opportunity if able to maintain attacking uptime pre arrow travel shift was longbow and I left the game for a good while and haven’t retested spirit’s as single accessory options since.

However the whole spirit thing is a great concept and rather than seriously limit a full spirit build which does really offer some great group benefit it’s more a matter of fixing spirit size. Stone being defensive and heals being defensive should remain unchanged but the DPS ones made much smaller with smaller obstruction boxes. At the same time, we spec to get piercing and aoe potential. Other classes cleave and since returning having tested spirits extensively pre aquaman patch despite their improved health it’s sort of a learn to play issue in terms of dropping a rangers spirits. Or get piercing just like I do so that guardian warrior doesn’t body block the elementalist I’m shooting.

Eosaujii.5713:

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul. The idiom, ‘whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine’ could be the fundamental game mechanic for a Ranger and her Pet.

In this regard, no distinction should be made in the traits between Ranger or Pet – all traits/signets, etc., should effect both the Ranger and the Pet equally. The Ranger and Pet should have full synergy.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the wild animals she calls friend. The Pets will impart their strengths upon the Ranger and in turn, she imparts all of hers upon them.

This synergistic relationship will make the Ranger greater than the sum of its parts.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the traits from the Ranger’s lineup that are only for the Pet, and rework them so that what effects the Ranger now also effects the Pet.

Bring a new level of synergy between the Ranger and Pet by allowing the pooling of health, the sharing of all boons, and the ability of each animal to impart a mode of defense and/or offense to the Ranger – this relationship exists in harmony, and is in effect all of the time.

Some examples of this:

Bear defense: imparts a bonus to health pool (scalable depending on level)
Bear offense: imparts a terrifying instant roar (stance) causing weakness and fear

Spider defense: imparts a sticky residue, causing an attacker to be immobilized momentarily
Spider offense: increases the potency of all the Ranger’s poisons, along with durations

Hawk defense: imparts a special sight to the Ranger, allowing her to block some missiles
Hawk offense: increases the range of all missiles, with a bonus to crit on the initial shot

Each animal in turn, would offer to the Ranger something unique. These functions could replace the current pet-bar, and be accessible as a normal class function.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet itself to become part of what the Ranger is, the Ranger no longer has to rely on the game server for the other half of her abilities.

I really, REALLY liked this.

Aden Celeste.3650:

Eosaujii.5713:

Specific Game Mode

WvW

Proposal Overview

Pets are part of the Ranger’s heart and soul. The idiom, ‘whats mine is yours, whats yours is mine’ could be the fundamental game mechanic for a Ranger and her Pet.

In this regard, no distinction should be made in the traits between Ranger or Pet – all traits/signets, etc., should effect both the Ranger and the Pet equally. The Ranger and Pet should have full synergy.

Goal of Proposal

Balance the Ranger with her natural role as a Champion of Nature let her be as one with the wild animals she calls friend. The Pets will impart their strengths upon the Ranger and in turn, she imparts all of hers upon them.

This synergistic relationship will make the Ranger greater than the sum of its parts.

Proposal Functionality

Remove the traits from the Ranger’s lineup that are only for the Pet, and rework them so that what effects the Ranger now also effects the Pet.

Bring a new level of synergy between the Ranger and Pet by allowing the pooling of health, the sharing of all boons, and the ability of each animal to impart a mode of defense and/or offense to the Ranger – this relationship exists in harmony, and is in effect all of the time.

Some examples of this:

Bear defense: imparts a bonus to health pool (scalable depending on level)
Bear offense: imparts a terrifying instant roar (stance) causing weakness and fear

Spider defense: imparts a sticky residue, causing an attacker to be immobilized momentarily
Spider offense: increases the potency of all the Ranger’s poisons, along with durations

Hawk defense: imparts a special sight to the Ranger, allowing her to block some missiles
Hawk offense: increases the range of all missiles, with a bonus to crit on the initial shot

Each animal in turn, would offer to the Ranger something unique. These functions could replace the current pet-bar, and be accessible as a normal class function.

Associated Risks

There are no risks associated with this, as it will simply balance the game play of the Ranger, forever removing the handicap of having a class with reliance on an AI driven game mechanic.

By allowing the Pet itself to become part of what the Ranger is, the Ranger no longer has to rely on the game server for the other half of her abilities.

I really, REALLY liked this.

I like this too. I thought of an idea very similar to this about 5 months ago or so. Basically each pet has a set of offensive skills and defensive skills, The Ranger can put them into an offensive mode which pursues the enemy with attacks and offensive skills, or the Ranger could put the pet into a defensive mode so that the pet no longer pursues the enemy, instead it stays by the Rangers side offering defensive skills/abilities, like reflections or screens, etc.

And if having a set of skills per pet is too much, they can do it for a per pet classification example, cats, ursine, birds etc.

It would breathe new life into the ranger class.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Suggestions for improvements to the Ranger’s utility capabilities:
Slightly improving the utility potential of certain weapon skills, and decently improving the effectiveness of certain Utility skills.

Goal of Proposal
Giving the Ranger class a more reliable tools to work with.

Proposal Functionality

• Weapon Skills: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Weapon-Skills-Changes-Suggestion-for-the-CDI/first#post3701203

• Utility Skills: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Skills-Changes-Suggestion-for-the-CDI/first#post3701058

Associated Risks
Some of these changes could be just a little bit too strong in certain situations.

Thanks for reading Anet!

Chrispy.5641:

Arrys.7145:

Like those ideas but healing spring as survival. takes survival skills to find a spring right. Plus aren’t traps triggered by enemies….

Troll ungeunt sounds like some salve so I agree survival makes sense but not all heals need a cd reduction. Heal as one could be improved and needs it over TU is all.

Good concepts

It does make sense too that Healing Spring could be a survival skill. There are a few reasons why I went with trap instead though:::
- Healing Spring was a ‘Trap’ in Guild Wars 1, and benefited from the same skill that other traps did (bu it triggered automatically, not from enemies) :::

• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Healing_spring
• http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Trap
• The other reason is that the traits that benefit traps would make more sense for Healing Spring, such as using Trapper’s Expertise to give it a larger effect radius to remove conditions and give regen to allies in a larger area. Traits like Circle of Life would actually benefit from that larger radius as well.

On the lower cooldown thing, almost every skill type has a trait that reduces cooldown, so if you change healing skills to be of an actual skill type instead of just plain healing, it would make sense for it to also benefit from the traits that reduce cooldown.

I do admit that numbers have to be played with by the devs (like any other balance change)

Didn’t play GW1. The trap version would definitely be preferable. Somewhat selfishly as I like power/condition trap builds and spring and it would enhance the builds sniper claymore mine defending my snipers nest, small conflict assist build.

Specific Game Mode:
WvW, but affects all game modes (overall written through a pvp perspective)
Proposal Overview:
Increase the amount of swiftness that ranger has access to.
Goal of Proposal:
Make the ranger more mobile while running around/ in combat.
Proposal Functionality:
Add more swiftness to weapon skills, traits and utilities. Ranger is already a very mobile profession with heavy focus on evading and staying on the move. It feels weird that a class that would want to move a lot doesn’t have huge swiftness uptime, or has to use all of their skills to have a ok uptime compared to something like a warrior, who can go 20 into Tactics to get perma swiftness. While o don’t think that rangers should get perma swiftness too easily, I feel like they should have more of it.
Associated Risks:
Might make rangers too mobile and allow them to disengage and kite their opponents too easily, slight powercreep issues could happen. Overall I feel like the benefits would be greater than the downsides.

Specific Game Mode:
WvW, but affects all game modes (overall written through a pvp perspective)
Proposal Overview:
Increase the teamwork between the pet and you.
Goal of Proposal:
Make the pet feel more like your companion, and make you two play more well together.
Proposal Functionality:
Add more ‘your pet gains a boon’ or ‘your pet’s next attack causes a condition’ into your weapon skills.
Associated Risks:
If the conditions are too strong, condition ranger could become too strong, however boons should be fine and safe addition to the skills.

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

Not sure if this is a troll or not…
Seriously the existence of this thread alone is a predictor of how bad this class is. You will hardly find anyone that shares your opinion.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

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

Not sure if this is a troll or not…
Seriously the existence of this thread alone is a predictor of how bad this class is. You will hardly find anyone that shares your opinion.

ooooh boy, i needed a good laugh lol obvious troll but funny non the less. I am playing ESO beta currently and even there tho the gameplay and characters are weird, archery feel so much better than GW2. How to fix rangers and ranged weapons i dont know but i do hope the devs can pull it out because i really love this game.

Notice: everything I’m going to talk about, even though it comes off as a wall of text, is made as suggestions.

Specific Game Mode:
WvW, but affects all game modes (overall written through a pvp perspective)
Proposal Overview:
Tweaking/ reworking weapon skills
Goal of proposal:
Major changes should start from the basics, the weapons which make the core of your gameplay (or from the profession mechanic). Ranger’s weapon skills feel unfocused or are generally uninteresting to use so the aim is to focus the skills and make them fun to use. Also attaching boons to your pet via weapon skills increases the feel of teamwork of the two.

Proposal Functionality:
Longbow:
Overall increase the projectile speed of the missiles to make the weapon feel faster and hit more reliably.
#1. Make a skill-chain.
1st attack is the current one
2nd apply vulnerability and damage 65% when closer than 400 rage away, +400 range full damage.
3rd always full damage, applies 2s cripple to increase control of longbow.
#2. Reduce the channeling time, same amount of attacks, slightly reduce the damage scaling of the skill. Increase the cooldown slightly to compensate. Remove the vulnerability from the attack, instead, your pet’s next attack applies vulnerability. The current channeling time makes me feel unsatisfying since i can’t do anything else for such a long time or I lose damage.
#3. add 1s immobilize and you also gain swiftness. Overall this skill is really useful even though it’s not a damage all-star but it needs a little umph to it.
#4. Make Moment of clarity increase the knockback duration to make longbow more appealing to people who decide to take the trait, make your pet gain might. This skill is also overall useful although it’s not one of the skills you would spam on cooldown, requiring thinking when to cast the skill is in my opinion a good thing.
#5. Rework into snipe style channeled attack, dealing more damage the longer you channel it (only 1 hit though). Barrage is a cool concept but it’s extremely clunky thanks to its channeling time and the fact that you tend to die if you hit targets with retaliation on. Even if you could move while casting barrage it would still be overall weak skill since it’s easy to counterplay and you would still waste a lot of time to channel it. Also shooting crapton of arrows in rapid succession would fit shortbow more than longbow. Snipe would increase feeling of longbow ranger being a hunter/marksman and also encourage the ranger to stay in long range to feel safe channeling this skill.

Goal of the changes:
The aim is to increase the control of the longbow in pvp environment to allow the ranger to keep their distance more easily and to make them able to counter gap-closers more effectively while also make it slightly more effective when the longbow ranger is forced into melee. Also having access to 2 major single target damage skills with 2 utility skills makes the weapon more focused.

Greatsword:
#1. Increase the overall damage coefficient of the attacks, there’s no reason to punish power based builds with bad scaling.
#2. Add blast finisher, your pet gains might. Reduce cast time. Maul is overall a good skills, it’s very telegraphed but it also got great damage to compensate. Adding a blast finisher would add team utility of ranger by little, but every bit helps. Having pet gain might increases the feeling of power that the skill has.
#3. You gain swiftness when you use this skill. Swoop is awesome. It got great utility and rather short cooldown. Swiftness is more so to add overall mobility which greatsword lacks.
#4. Make the knockback attack quicker to make the skill more fluent. Add your pet gains retaliation.
#5. Make your and your pets’ next attack deals 50% increased damage. Currently the power of this skill can be very random since the extra damage your pet can deal can be anywhere between 300 to 1k. Also the short dash of this skill just makes it harder to hit, if the dash stays you could at least evade while dashing. Also the base damage of this skill is rather low compared to its long cooldown.

Goal of the changes:
Overall increase the damage of greatsword, which is currently on the low end, and increasing the fluency of the weapon to make it feel better.

Sword:
#1. Allow you to dodge while leaping. You just tend to kill yourself when auto attacking since you cannot avoid important skills.
#2.This is very weird skill, it’s very short cooldown ‘get away’ button, and you basically never want to use it when it comes off cooldown since you can’t auto attack while dodging backwards/leaping. This comes off as a situational skill and it’s a strong one, mind you but it’s also something that I feel shouldn’t be the ‘spammable’ skill of a weapon.
#3. Make the dodge frames match the animation, increase the damage coefficient and base damage since sword should be the power based 1-h weapon. Make your pet’s next attack inflicts weakness.

goal of the changes:
Make the sword less suicidal when happily attacking away at your opponent, ignoring anything since you can’t avoid. Make the weapon feel more fluent and increase the damage to make it more appealing for power builds.

Axe:
Overall make axe feel more powerful, I should be throwing some of the heaviest weapons that I could realistically throw and currently it feels like I’m throwing small stones at people. Axe feels horrible to use currently simply because it doesn’t play like an throwing axe should.
#1. Make skill chain
1. current one, increased damage
2. inflict bleeding alongside with bouncing, higher damage
3. “you throw the axe with your full force, granting your pet fury. Increased damage when your target is within ~400 range” Overall make the attack chain feel more brutal, axe isn’t a clean weapon and the skills should reflect that better, the hits need more feeling of power behind them. Also reduce the aftercast of the skill, it feels extremely clunky currently.
#2. Way too similar to shortbow #2, and I think axe 2 should be the one to get reworked, ideas could be like, throw 2 axes like boomerangs, damaging foes the pass through, fly pattern depends where your target is. I’m not certain how axe 2 should be changed, but in my opinion it should be changed to something else to make the weapons more unique from each other.
#3. Increase the damage, overall I find this skill to be very useful with its almost 100% uptime weakness but it really needs a damage increase to feel satisfying.
#4. Make the axes apply cripple and increase projectile speed. It’s way too unreliable to get the pull off since you can just sidestep it. Your pet’s next attack applies vulnerability.
#5. Reduce the duration, make you be able to move while channeling, reduce the time before the skill effects start. Your pet gains retaliation. This skill is very powerful but it’s also rather clunky, making you able to move would at least be an easy fix for some of that and reducing the starting time would make the skill feel more responsive.

Goal of changes:
Make axe more heavy feeling weapon, making it more satisfying to use and overall increasing the damage that the weapon can do, since the damage is really, really low.
Dagger: Fine as it is.
Torch: Torch #4 is really strong, as is burn overall, making torch appealing choice but the 5th skill is just lacking.
#5. It’s really hard to get any value out of this skill, even when traited. It’s really easy for the enemy to move out of it without taking damage or just to even hit someone with it is hard, even when they’re on you. Having the skill be like “Set a bonfire, causing sudden blast, dwindling down to a firefield”, effectively just adding a starting damage and burning to the skill in short range to increase the effectiveness of the skill instead of it just being a dead skill versus smart opponents. Optionally this could also work as a condi removal skill to increase its usefulness.

Warhorn:
#4. make the first attack apply blind and make your pet’s next attack inflict blind, increasing the utility of this skill, it also fits the flavor of calling dozens of birds to attack your enemy.
#5. Reduce the cooldown of the skill, it gives great utility but its uptime is rather bad, could increase the swiftness duration match the skill cooldown for easy access to perma swiftness. Even though I talked about I don’t think that ranger should have an easy access to perma swiftness, it feels to me like having a warhorn would be an expection since atleast warhorn skills between professions give swiftness, and ranger should be one of the most mobile profession in the game. Make it give the boons to your pet automatically so you can give the boons for one person more (dunno if it already does this.).

Shortbow:
#1. Make this a skill chain, ranger should be master of bow even if it isn’t the professions main focus, having skill chains on ranged weapons makes them feel unique from other professions
1. Current
2.Current
3. Instead of bleed from sides, applies 1 stack of torment for short duration.
#2. Increase the damage so you want to use this instead of just auto attacking. Increase the duration of the poison if hit by small amount of arrows, same if hit my multiple ones (3+).
#3. Grants stealth to you to increase the utility of the weapon (only if you hit something). Your pet gains protection. Since you do a short leap when casting this it would also fit the skill if it would remove immobilizes.
#4. Increase the damage to make you want to use it more often.
#5. Increase the damage and inflict bleeding (not much though). Your pet gains fury. (Technically confusion would fit this skill but I don’t think that ranger should have access to confusion.) While daze/stun is a strong effect, especially on such a quick cast time I feel like this skill is still lacking in the damage parts.

Goal of the changes:
Increase the condi damage that shortbow can do, making it the ranged weapon of choice for condi specs, while also increasing the utility of it slightly via stealth.

Associated Risks:
Major changes, needing a lot of number crunching and other balancing to be at level with other professions and as always, there’s a risk of major power creep. I don’t think the changes would affect the flavor or the fantasy of a ranger.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Suggestions for some trait changes.
Improving some weak traits and relocating traits that belong in different trait lines.

Goal of Proposal
Reducing the need of most Ranger builds to invest a large amount of trait points to make utilities from almost completely useless to useful.
Expanding build diversity.

Proposal Functionality
Trait changes: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Trait-Changes-Suggestion-for-the-CDI/first#post3701323

Associated Risks
Trap builds could be too defensive with these changes.

Specific Game Mode:
WvW, but affects all game modes (overall written through a pvp perspective)

Proposal Overview:
Utility/ heal skill changes

Goal of Proposal:
Make certain utilities more appealing.

Proposal Functionality:
1. Healing skills:

Heal as One:
Make the skill clean 2-3 conditions, making it the condi-clear heal of rangers.

Healing Spring:
Remove the condi clear of the skill, compensate with slight healing increase.
No changes to other heals. Overall the healing skills would become more focused and each one would have their specific uses, forcing the ranger to make a real choice between the heals they can choose.

2. Utility Skills:
Signets:
Make all signet active effects affect the ranger and if traited the pet too. Balance accordingly.

Signet of Renewal:
Make the active remove all conditions from the ranger, also from the pet if traited. No changes to passive. This way you wouldn’t kill your pet with your main "really need to get these condis off me " button.

Signet of the Hunt:
Make the active attack also be a 100% crit. Often these passive speed increase signets don’t have very good actives, but SotH is just too horrible to ever be of use. Making the attack 100% crit would make it situationaly useful, but if you would pick this skill, you would still wouldn’t want to activate it all the time.
Signet of the Wild: Add stunbreak. Since pretty much all abilities that give you stability are also stunbreakers, this one shouldn’t be any different.

Shouts:
Shouts need major rework, mostly because the pets are too clunky to get the full benefit of the shouts, or the shouts aren’t that useful.

Sic’ Em:
Fix the bugs, increase the duration of revealed and make the reveal apply in a radius around the pet, so that you can realistically counter the stealth. Even with small amount of lag you currently need to guess when your opponent is going to stealth to counter it, making the stealth counter part of skill really hard to use.

Guard:
Rework, Make it be the Rune of Lyssa (6) effect (gain all boons, remove all conditions), but just transfering the condis to your pet, working similarly to the current Signet of Renewal. While it would be a shout that kills your pet, it wouldn’t be your only source of condi clear, making it not so severe.

Protect Me:
Make your pet take 50% of the damage you take for the duration, while your pet would still act normally. Your pet gains retaliation and protection for the duration. Simply gives you another defensive cooldown.

Traps:
Traps are overall very strong, giving good condi burst that ranger weapon skills lack, but at the cost of defensive utilities.

Frost Trap:
Reduce the cooldown slightly to increase the uptime of the trap. Frost Trap is often overlooked, but chilled is very strong condi and the trap is overall good.

Spike Trap:
Rework into Arrow Trap (like the current longbow #5), Spike Trap is a very classic type of trap, compared to the others it feels out of place (as would Arrow Trap, but..), however Arrow Trap would serve as the power based trap and I feel like having 3 condi based traps gives too much condi burst to rangers. (Arrow trap: Mark a spot with an arrow, enemy walking over it triggers barrage of arrows at the location. (enemy cannot see the initial arrow), (you take reduced damage from retaiation)).

Lightning Reflexes:
Also removes crippled, chilled and immobilized. (QoL improvement)

Sharpening Stones:
Rework, while this skill might be fine for pure damage, it’s extremely dull utility to have. It’s just extremely boring.
reworked into:

Woodsman’s Guile, Become stealthed, gaining Swiftness.
Part of the ranger is being a woodsman, being able to quickly travel distances and being unseen. Having access to stealth on utility skill would allow ranger to play the sustain game better and make it easier to stay in long range from their enemies.

Muddy Terrain:
Similar to Sharpening Stones, Muddy Terrain is boring and almost never useful (outside of reducing the damage when you want to try flying), which in my opinion calls for rework.
reworked into:

Lie in Wait: Apply camouflage to you and stealth for your pet.
Having access to camouflage probably is even more flavorful than the stealth, a hunter lying in wait for their pray, however in game I’m unsure how useful having on demand access to camouflage would be. Still I think this would be more useful than Muddy Terrain. Also there has been very good suggestions for ranger utility skills, a lot of them would fit the ranger better than Muddy Terrain does.

Associated Risks:
Major Balancing issues, power creep. I don’t believe changing Muddy Terrain or Sharpening Stones would cause any harm as I almost never see these skills being used anyway.

Cufufalating.8479:

Durzlla.6295:

-snip-

So glad at least one person shares my opinion on the matter, and is able to explain it better than me.

agreed, but I’ll still take a way to proc an aegis reliably in the skirmishing line through an opening strikes style ability to enhance my dodges against burst and give extra defense to a build that through armor runes finds vitality to health more than a bit low.

Specific Game Mode:
WvW, but affects all game modes (overall written through a pvp perspective)
Proposal Overview:
Reworking/ tweaking traits.
Proposal Functionality:

Notice: The open slots that my suggestions/opinions would leave (Marksman (Master), Skirmishing (Grandmaster), Nature Magic (Grandmaster)) could be used to buff up currently borderline builds or to overall help certain builds in multiple ways. Even though I don’t make suggestions to them (I don’t believe myself to be good enough of a designer to do so) they are open opportunities to make the profession overall stronger in a yet unknown ways.

Marksmanship:

Marksmanship 5,15,25: Combine 5 and 10 together, move the 25 trait down to the 15. Add a new 25, something like Increased damage when attacking target over 800 rage away. Make the Opening Strike be similar to the stealth attacks of thieves, replacing your current autoattack, removing the min-maxing of the 100% crit of the trait. Make the melee versions be a leap attack with around 700 range and the ranged attacks be quick long range attacks, both with increased damage compared to rangers’ normal auto attack damage. This would truly make an ‘opening attack’ instead of just 5 stacks of vulnerability and increase the felling of being a hunter stalking its prey and killing it with one powerful attack. This does have the risk of being too good for melee weapon if you gain additional leap which you could also use to escape, but the ranged attack would be very flavorful and In my opinion a great addition for the traitline.

Marksman III: Fits more in Wilderness Survival (adept).

Marksman IV: Move to Beastmastery traitline (adept), Signets don’t fit marksmanship tree at all, not game play wise nor flavorwise.

Marksman VI: While should flavorwise be in Beastmastery traitline, but we can’t move all the stuff there. Reduce the cooldown to make it more appealing.

Marksman VII: I rather just want to give my opinion on this. A lot of people are saying to Move this to the skirmishing traitline. I disagree, it fits the Marksmanship traitline very well. You rely on a keen eye to notice the weak spots on the targets and call them out, this increasing your chance to critically strike. Keen eye is a skill fitting more for the marksman traitline than skirmishing, this I believe this should be in the marksman traitline

Marksman VIII: arguably should be baseline. Could add “your arrows deal damage in a wider radius”, overall increasing the aoe damage potential of bows.

Marksman IX: Move to Beastmastery traitline (master).

Marksman X: I’d actually like this to be moved to grandmaster spot and beefed up, though I’m not sure that it would be a good choice.

Marksman XI: Move to Beastmastery traitline (grandmaster), change function to apply the signet active bonus to your pet (since it should already apply the effect to you).

Marksman XII: Notice the stealth skills I was suggesting? Partly to make this trait reset more often. If Opening Strike is strong enough and you can reset if often enough, like you should be able to, this trait would quickly become rather good. I still think it should have more ways to regain Opening Strike, one bound into being in long range would fit the traitline very well in my opinion. Overall I think it’s the opening strike that should receive the rework instead of this trait.

New trait suggestions for marksman:
1. Similar one to that of Eagle eye, just for shortbow, in the master tier. Even though I feel like shortbow should be the condi based ranged weapon, it still should have a strong trait in the marksman tree. Also it just feels weird that longbow has a specialized trait and shortbow doesn’t have one. Could be like “Increase the duration of conditions applied my your shortbow by 33%, increases the range of your shortbow by 300. (combined with the fact that marksman traitline would give you 20% condi duration this would increase the pressure that you could put in a long fight with the shortbow.)”.
2. Main hand axe focused trait in adept tier, doesn’t have to be flashy, just to have a nod toward ‘yeah you’re pretty good at throwing axes’.

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
Limit the amount of health that a pet can lose in a single hit.
Goal of Proposal
Pet survivability of one-hit death mechanics
Proposal Functionality
Pets can’t lose more that x% health from a single hit. x could vary by traits.
Associated Risks
low risk depending on the values of x chosen

Skirmishing:
Overall move the trap traits into Wilderness Survival and tweak some of the traits. There’s no reason to have traps in skirmishing traitline. The traps are not something that a ranger would randomly throw in a middle of a fight and instantly set them (although to make them play well this happens), they are something you plan out on and play into. Also traps are a classic way to survive out in the wilderness so flavorwise it makes no sense to have the traps in the Skirmishing traitline instead of Wilderness Survival.

skirmishing 5,15,25: Increase the duration of 5 and 15 to 9 seconds (for real, currently 15 bugged to be 5 secs.). The 25 could be reworked but I feel like it’s in the fine spot atm. (there was a good suggestion of cleansing a condition on weapon swap.).

Skirmishing III: Move to Wilderness Survival (adept), no reason to have traps in skirmishing.

Skirmishing VI: I’m running this more often than I’d like to admit. Why? Because your pet is running to your target always instead of hitting them, if you combo this and swiftness they atleast somewhat stick to the target.

Skirmishing VII: Make it so that when the pet triggers this, you also heal for a small amount. Currently this is way too situational to be picked.

Skirmishing VII: Move to Wilderness Survival (master trait). Again, there’s no reason to have traps in Skirmishing.

Skirmishing IX: Make it reduce the cooldown of your mainhand axe skills by 20% in addition to its current effects. Currently it just feels too weak.

Skirmishing XI: Move to Wilderness Survival (grandmaster). Still no reason to have traps in skirmishing traitline.

Skirmishing XII: On paper this skill looks really good, but the lack of interrupts make this mediocre trait at best. The idea behind it is nice but it lacks in execution. Adding a passive effect “You deal increased damage to stunned targets” would give this skill nice boost, although I still doubt it would be amazing. Still I think this would be the best way to start buffing this trait. Also if you want ranger to be a ‘sustained damage’ profession, why does this trait exist?

Wilderness Survival:
Wilderness Survival I: While I talked about removing Muddy Terrain, I’m fine if its legacy would live on in this trait.

Wilderness Survival II: combine with Trappers defense (skirmishing III) to make reviving traits more appealing.

Wilderness Survival III: Move to Beastmastery (adept). while fits the defensive aspect of Wilderness Survival, it overall fits Beastmastery flavorwise way better.

Wilderness Survival VII: Another trait I’d just like to talk about. While it’s true that most of the ranger weapons fit the 2 upper traitlines, think about what weapons you can use in your offhand. Warhorn fits Nature Magic/ Beastmastery, axe is Skirmishing, and both dagger and torch are used to survive in the wilderness, and to a lesser extent axe too. It’s not the functionality of the trait that matters, it’s how a woodsman would use these weapons, which would be noncombat survival when in the wilds. Flavorwise I think this trait should stay in Wilderness Survival, and gameplay wise it atleast does a decent job in Wilderness Survival.

Wilderness Survival VIII: Move to Nature Magic (master), While it fits the flavor of Wilderness Survival to use different salves or herbs to heal oneself I think Nature Magic should be the traitline which should focus more on regeneration and healing overall.

Wilderness Survival IX: Change to stealth from camouflage. Since this triggers when you’re cc:d, your opponent always knows where you are camouflaged, which mostly defeats the purpose of this trait, changing this to stealth would allow the ranger to avoid more damage that follows the cc, while currently it’s very rare that you just won’t eat the full damage.

Wilderness Survival X: Move the skill cooldown reduction for Greatsword and Spear into Two-Handed Training. Move the sword skill cooldown reduction into its own trait into Skirmishing traitline. There’s no reason for the ranger to be martial master if they have specialized into Wilderness Survival.

Wilderness Survival XI: Move this down to master tier, make this just clear 3 condis from you and your pet every 10 sec. This would be one of the more important changes to be made. This is the main source of condition cleansing that the ranger currently has and it’s tucked away 30 into a traitline. Almost any build I’ve tried out and all the builds I’m currently using have this trait. It’s so important. Having it 30 traits deep in a traitline that I wouldn’t otherwise even want to take just reduces build diversity by huge margin since playing against almost all the condi builds in the game without this trait basically means you will lose the fight. Overall even in large scale fights having some passive condi clear that’s notable is very important since it can save you.

Nature Magic:
Notice: I’m not gonna talk about spirit related traits, since I never use spirits as I despise them. I’m sure there’s other people with more valid points and experience in the matter than I have.

Nature Magic 15: Move to Beastmastery 5 trait, or make it baseline. This is a trait about teamwork between the ranger and the pet and while this can be very strong, it’s very basic level interaction which is why I think this should be in Beatmastery 5.

Nature Magic II: Could use merging with some other traits, boon duration increase on the pet is really situational thing to have, the healing increase from the Beastmastery trait Compassion Training (IV) would fit the traitline better than the other ones (both very situational, so shouldn’t be too powerful at adept tier.)

Nature Magic VIII: Add remove torment to this. This is already a really strong dodge based condi clear but since it has cooldown of 10 sec, I think it could be buffed slightly. This does have a huge risk of power creep though.

Nature Magic IX: Move to Skirmishing (Master). There’s nothing about being able to connect to spirits of nature that increases your skill, or training in that matter, that makes you better wielding a two-handed weapon. Also this would be a nice buff to power based ranger builds as they are more likely to go into Skirmishing than Nature Magic.

Nature Magic XII: Move to Beastmastery (master). Shouting is something that Beastmaster would do and while I do think that this trait could be in both traitlines, it definitely should be in master tier. It gives 2 boons that don’t stack on really short range, and the uptime without using ‘Guard’ is abysmal. Also this would increase the build diversity by allowing shout builds have 10 more trait points to play around. Having cornerstone traits all locked up 30 traits deep really hurts the build diversity.

Beastmastery:

Beastmastery 5: Remove and add Fortifying bond (Nature Magic 15) in its place. If you really want to keep this, it could be integrated into Zephyr’s Speed (Beastmastery XI). Currently this is just useless, it could be nice if pets were a real threat that could balance things out by your pet bursting your opponent also down when you get downed but with the current pet AI, this is not the case.

Beastmastery 25: Move to Nature Magic 25, reduce the % amount accordingly. This just feels out of place on a traitline that could be absolutely filled with pet themed traits.

Beastmastery I & V: Combine these 2 together. These two do very similar thing without either being very powerful, or if they would be, it would be set back by the pet AI.

Beastmastery IV: Merge with Nature Magic II.

Beastmastery VII, VIII & IX: Combine these together. It’s very rare that you would benefit from multiple of these enough so that you would actually notice them and currently there’s no way you’d even want to take 2 of these since they are way weaker than Beastmastery X (Vigorous Training), also your pets tend to die too often for you to benefit in a big way from these traits unless you run two pets from the same pet family.

Beastmastery XI: Move to the Beastmastery 25 slot reduce to 2 seconds to compensate. This would fit way better than the current one in the minor trait slot while also truly encouraging swapping of pets.

Associated Risks:
Major balancing, power creep especially for power builds but I feel that the power builds really need buff so some form of power creep should even happen . These trait changes wouldn’t change the fantasy of being a ranger in a big way, nor should they alienate current ranger players.

Two days without a Red post….. WOW

Chokolata.1870:

Two days without a Red post….. WOW

And if they don’t work on weekends… it’ll be what, 6 days up with reds only posting one day? This needs more red to feel like it’s actually Collaborative and so we can hopefully start making some progress to fix the most messed up profession :/

Jocksy.3415:

Durzlla.6295:

Aioros.4862:

jcbroe.4329:

I haven’t ever seen anything that was nerfed unnecessarily, and for the most part, this a perception that is shared by people who play every other single class.

Pet damage for non beastmaster builds?
Shortbow range?
Shortbow “animation fix” mega nerf?

Key word is bolded, when SB had same range as longbow there was literally 0 reason to use the longbow, pet damage was nerfed because you could go bunker with literally 0 drawback, and SB animation fix was to make the weapon not ungodly OP, after that “mega nerf” it continued to be, and still is, one of our best weapons.

Balance is not about balancing a class with itself, but with the whole game. They wanted to make longbow more desired, so instead of adding to it, to bring it to a point equal to similar possibilities of other classes, they chose to nerf a weapon that was on par with other classes possibilities….

I do understand that it is hard to find a good balance for all game modes, but balancing everything on one game mode that is not representative of what most people do is far from the solution.

If the SB would have been really overpowered – which I don’t think it was – they wouldn’t have nerfed it to balance out with longbow, they would have nerfed it to balance with general professions’ abilities. (Pretty much everybody say they nerfed it to make longbow more wanted… I don’t remember reading that they nerfed it because it was, in itself, overpowered).
Since that nerf, they did boost longbow somewhat, guess the SB nerf was not enough to get people to use LB…

Not sure if it makes sense; English is not my main language.

TL;DR
Balance should not be only within one profession, but have to take into account all that one profession is doing (CC, Damage, healing, damage reduction) compared with all that other professions are doing.

Shortbow was faceroll easy for a long time. So faceroll easy you rarely saw rangers without it. It needed fixing.

LB really wasn’t fixed after that patch but it’s a very interesting weapon now as it’s been improved much since. If I made any change to it. LB 1 would become a 3 shot string with the third shot bounding you back based on distance to enemy. at 1000 – 0 units at 500 – 300 units back below 100 – 900 units.

Basically a counter to the massive amount of leaps and pulls in this game I encounter in even small skirmishes. It’s a mobility control weapon and stability spam and leaps pulls are it’s weakness.

The longbow is easy to fix:
-compress the Rapid fire into 2.5 seconds from 4.5 seconds, keep total damage the same
-hunter shot stealths on shot not on hit
-allow movement during barrage channel

There, I fixed it… tsk

Specific Game Mode:
PvE, but applies generally

Proposal Overview:
Addressing pet class mechanic flaws within the engine limitations. Hoping to add more developer-friendly class mechanic improvements/reworks to the discussion.

Goal of Proposal:
To improve pet reliability and help to avoid gamebreakers experienced in past living world content.

Proposal Functionality:
From what I’ve gathered Pet AI is a tough cookie to change as it would require much deeper engine/pathfinding changes etc. So I would like to approach current issues with the following hopefully easier to implement ideas.
- more focus on “shout” mechanics. Shouts usually work instantly and as such are very reliable for the player. Our pets should either passively, or actively via our Function key skills, have access to shouts that affect enemies /allies in their vicinity. Implementing crowd control /debuffing shouts could help our pet to chase down an opponent and finally get some hits in. Or at least generally get its effect onto the target more reliably and without delay. (Regarding PvP counterplay: Players would quickly learn over time that pets have a danger zone at which their shouts affect them so they could try and avoid them)
- Implement a “dodge!” / “take cover!” Function key skill shout. Comfortably it could just trigger as we dodge ourself, but generally it could an extra level of skillful play if I had a button to make my pet avoid the next attack or a duration of attacks (1~2 seconds – would need tweaking). Either by giving our pet aegis or the mesmers blur effect. I would be more in control and could save my pet from boss moves. In PvP a voiceline / buff effect on the pet would give away whats going on to my opponent.
- lightfooted pets / trap avoidance (remove pet collision? OR permanent pet stow, only appear when called for) This one may be harder, but many living story events were ruined by a rangers pet, simply because the pet was able to trigger traps / bombs / monster aggro / event triggers via it’s uncontrollable pathfinding. I think every early ranger remembers the fight in Canach’s Lair… So yeah I’d love to see a futureproof change made here to avoid further issues with ranger pets in LS events. At worst this could mean a stow option that keeps our pet hidden until called for. Currently when a pet is stowed it automatically appears whenever we enter combat in any way, which in some situations can be realllyyy bad for us. Also for machinima reasons it can be useful to keep your pet easily out of vision!
- Downed pets regenerate/Ranger heal affects downed pets When our pets are defeated we are completely void of a class mechanic and many of our abilities and traits don’t come into effect. This is a HUGE disadvantage and there is currently very little we can do in this situation but to wait for lengthy pet swap cooldowns. I would suggest that our pet is healing in its downed state and that using our #6 skill would boost it’s hp by quite a bit (or even fully revive the pet?). While we may be at full hp ourself, this would give us a tactical option to bring back our lil buddy and be functional again!
general stuff
- merge pet traits There is no real point in dividing the pet traits across different species. (see Beastmastery VII,VIII,IX) After all I can only have two animals on me at a time during battle. Constantly having to swap this trait as I exchange my pets just hinders gameplay and adds no real depth to any fight. It just adds to the length of pre-encounter preperations. This would also make room for new alternative traits in these spots . I would generally suggest more shout focused traits, [X effect on shout] since we would have some always available now in our Function key slots.
- buff pet base movement speed As I mentioned above already, pets have trouble chasing. If we want our pet to really succeed (a little more) at chasing it’s usually required to get swiftness on it or even to take the movement speed trait (agility training…which generally is an awful awful trait currently ).

Associated Risks
The riskiest part I would see on the proposed shout focus because it may be hard to counter in PvP. Given visible buff effects and audible voicelines by the ranger player or pet would help immensely though (And be pretty immersive!)

This ended up being quite lengthy after all, I’m sorry! Important parts have been bolded. Thanks for reading and I’m extra sorry for my german based engrish

Chokolata.1870:

The longbow is easy to fix:
-compress the Rapid fire into 2.5 seconds from 4.5 seconds, keep total damage the same
-hunter shot stealths on shot not on hit
-allow movement during barrage channel

There, I fixed it… tsk

You’ve made it better, but it’s still an incomplete weapon. There’s no synergy between the attacks like there are with melee weapons. No real flow. You’ve also left the problem where Barrage and Hunter’s Shot are counter intuitive because you can stealth then barrage but you can’t barrage and then stealth. This is why barrage needs to be removed from the weapon. It just doesn’t make any sense the way it’s set up currently.

Its a pew pew weapon but rapid fire is a DPS loss instead of a buff. Barrage immobility kills you and makes you unable to kite. Hunter shot working on hit can sometimes screw you over due to reflects and stealth the target.

Chokolata.1870:

Its a pew pew weapon but rapid fire is a DPS loss instead of a buff. Barrage immobility kills you and makes you unable to kite. Hunter shot working on hit can sometimes screw you over due to reflects and stealth the target.

Oh I’m not disputing your other changes. I’m simply saying barrage is an awful skill. It should be replaced with something else that actually does burst damage and make barrage a utility skill instead while at the same time making barrage actually something worth casting.