Guild Wars 2

So I’ve been playing the Ranger class for the most part after the launch and must say I rather enjoy it. Also I would like to say that this game seems to be really well thought out as a whole and the only issues I have are a minor part of the overall game experience (Even though it may seem like the opposite later on within the post)

There are a couple of things which concern me mostly with the trait layout and how some of them work against each other, not to mention some traits/abilities being a little bit useless. (I’m also unsure of where or even if there is a suggestions section)

Lets begin with the Attribute layout from bottom to top, then the Minor Traits. I won’t mention Major Traits (yet) as I don’t want to spend all night “keyboard bashing”.

Enjoy the wall of text.
Also note; these are just my opinions, it does not mean I’m right (or wrong for that matter) but do leave your feedback.

Beastmastery: Healing + Pet Attribute Bonus
Now these attributes don’t seem that bad, but in fact the Healing stat is (in my opinion) ineffectively placed. If you are going to increase you’re pets stats, then surely you would need to be a little more durable.
Now you can argue that the Healing stat is good due to the fact you can heal yourself and your pet more (A pet that may or may not get focused). I’m pretty sure that the extra vitality is more effective than the extra healing.
You can also argue that you’re taking more of a “support” role with this line, I can’t help but disagree as there is already a (what should be) a “support” tree.

The fact remains, you die, you’re pet dies.

Suggested change: Beastmastery: Vitality + Pet Attribute Bonus

Nature Magic: Vitality + Boon Duration
For obvious reasons, this tree is deemed as what would be closest to a support tree.

Suggested change: Nature Magic: Healing + Boon Duration

Wilderness Survival: Toughness + Conditional Damage
This is another weird placement of attributes. Toughness yes. Conditional Damage? why? Surely Conditional Duration would make at least a little bit more sense.
I suppose you do have your Sharpening Stone ability so the extra damage wouldn’t be entirely wasted. Oh wait that’s right, that also doesn’t make a lot of sense for a Survival skill in the first place (Which may I add is also a trait in Marksmanship……)

Suggested Change: Wilderness Survival: Toughness + Conditional Duration

Skirmishing: Precision + Critical Damage
Now I don’t have much problem with the attributes in this tree. I do feel that Conditional Damage would be very beneficial for this tree as you would be more likely to be using more variety of weapons/abilities with conditional damaging effects. Precision would be the one major attribute that needs to be in this tree due to the amount of traits with on-crit effects.

Suggested change: Skirmishing: Precision + Conditional Damage

Marksmanship: Power + Condition Duration
Again for obvious reasons I would place Critical Damage on this tree. Now in the current state of some of the traits in this tree (I’m referring to OS which I’ll get to later) Critical damage is not a good choice without a decent amount of precision. While you will gain this through gear, unless you spec into Skirmishing you will loose out on a hefty amount of crit chance. But with some tweaking of traits it shouldn’t matter.

Suggested change: Marksmanship: Power + Critical Damage

Minor traits

Marksmanship:
Adept Trait: Opening Strike: Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat.
Master Trait: Alpha Training: Pets have Opening Strike.
Grandmaster Trait: Precise Strike: Opening strike always critical hits.
These triats don’t seem that bad when at first glance. its great to do extra damage, but when you think, this is for one attack at the start of combat. I really don’t feel that going this deep into a tree and sacrificing durability from others is worth it. Only the first trait needs a real change for the entire tree to be transformed in my opinion.

Suggested change:
Adept Trait: Opening Strike: Finds an opening and causes vulnerability with your attack(s) (8-12 second cooldown).
Master Trait: Alpha Training: Pets have Opening Strike.
Grandmaster Trait: Precise Strike: Opening strike always critical hits.

Now you don’t need to go 30 points in to make these 3 minor traits half viable and going even 10 points in wouldn’t be a waste.

Skirmishing:
Skirmishing’s minor traits to me are pretty good and well suited for that tree so we won’t touch on that.

Wilderness Survival
What puzzles me is the tier three trait in this tree.
Grandmaster Trait: Peak Strength: Deal 5% extra damage when your health is above 90%.
This trait just seems a little bit random to me, first of all 5%+ damage is actually pretty nice even if it is just until you are taken below 90% hp. That’s ok cause you have range.
Though +% damage in a more defensive tree is not going to scale very well.
However, this really isn’t much of an issue despite it being tier three as you do have a maximum of 70 points to spend.

Nature Magic
Grandmaster Trait: Bountiful Hunter: You and your pet deal 5% more damage while you have a boon.
Again I feel this trait is in the wrong place (along with: Nature’s Wrath: 10% of healing is given as a bonus to power, from the pet tree)

Suggested change: Swapped
Beastmastery: Grandmaster Trait: Bountiful Hunter: You and your pet deal 5% more damage while you have a boon.
With:
Nature Magic: Grandmaster Trait: Nature’s Wrath: 10% of healing is given as a bonus to power.

Reserved for later use of which I need to use 15 characters for a valid post :O

One last reserve for later use of which I need to use 15 characters for a valid post :O

Your not the only class which has some really odd choices.

Trying to build a mantra based mesmer is like dealing with someone who has schizophrenia. Also having condition duration on our power damage tree is REALLY odd.

Hopefully they will fix the trait trees to not be quite so seemingly random at some point in the near future.

Glad you pointed this out. I thought something felt weird about them but I didn’t really look at them closely but now that you pointed it out most of what you suggested makes more sense than how it is. I wonder if they did it in an attempt to prevent min/maxing?

I played a ranger and currently I put 20 points into Marksmanship, 10 points into skirmishing and 10 into wilderness. At lvl 20 marksman, you get a trait skill that makes your arrow pierce through target, that is a very useful skill , I use it WvW and pve just because while using a short bow, I could hit multiple targets with stuns and slow skills while kiting them around .
I guess towards the end, I would put 20 points in marksmanship , 30 In skirmishing and 20 in wilderness.
Any 1 cares to share how their ranger is built?

I agree with some points but there is one part I disagree with. That is changing the beast master trait line to have +vitality instead of +healing. Not everyone may want to go with a pet spec, so I disagree with linking it with one of the most important stats. + healing is more of a secondary stat that is picked up by those that have extra points, or the very few that want a lot of healing over everything else (I have never met anyone in GW2 so far with this idea.) vitality is a skill that is High in the ranking of being chosen, and when you lock that to a distinct style of play it tends to take away the options for playstyles. Beast master tree is for a district group that likes to spec for pets. Me I personally don’t, and If vitality was attached to beast master, I would be Extremely unhappy about having to waste my points in a pet build with things that I despise just so I could pick up some health.

I prettymuch agree with this.
I think the real headscratchers for me is that Skirmishing has the Trap, Shortbow, and Axe traits and raises neither Malice nor Expertise, and Nature Magic is supporterrific but doesn’t raise Healing. Something about that just doesn’t seem right.

I do actually like Bountiful Hunter in Nature Magic, though. If anything weirds me out about that line, it’s Two-Handed Training. What the kittenfluff are you doing there, Greatsword and Spear? Go trade places with Offhand Training. I want a better Greastword in Survival and a better Warhorn/Torch in Support.

While I think it would make sense to move Nature’s Wrath if you move Healing, I also think it’s a pretty lame grandmaster trait all around and wouldn’t mind seeing it get axed completely. Surely we can think of something niftier for the pinnacle of the pet line. Faster F2 skill casting? Lord knows I’d go 25 deep for that.

I myself have ranger 80 in full exotic gear (berserker armor, jewels and weapons), I did all of the instances in story mode, and some of them in exploration mode, I aslo did alot of WvW, and some sPVP.

I’m not going to comment on everything you said, instead i’ll just add my own experience to it.

You were talking about stats and traits of nature’s magic and beastmastery, now, from a PVE point of view, let me tell you, it does NOT matter, not even a little bit, as your spirits and pets constantly get one shot by pretty much anything.
The pet control system doesn’t let you do anything about your spirits, and pets don’t even position themselves behind their target to hit when they don’t have the aggro … They also don’t take reduced damage from AOE… resulting in their lifetime never exceeding 5 seconds.

Now, about WvW, most of the pets can’t hit structures (your pet is out of range, even tho the gate is right in front of it …). They also die cause they stand in any AOE, you can only command your pet to stick near you, or run behind its target, nothing else ..

Last but not least, sPVP, pets work well, I would even say that they do too much damage … But hey, it makes up for the terrible and useless skills you have as a ranger, I only use quickening zephyr and seal of stone (with signet of beastmaster trait) and a random last, depending on the “builds” i try, then again, there maybe 2 different builds on a ranger that are not useless.

Edit : I forgot to talk about Pet skills, you have quite alot of them, great, It woul be nice to control more than 1, don’t you think ?
How stupid is that, you can control when your wolf casts its heal, but not when it uses its 2 seconds stun ? W T F

Btw, your thread will be locked tomorrow, suggestions aren’t allowed yet. I’m sorry :/

I agree with Qtin. At 80, theres a lot more guys PvE and a ton of AOE dmg that wrecks your summons and pets, so focus your traits on buffing your dmg and survivability. The arrow pierce is incredible for farming the lvl 80 zone. I personally run with quickening zypher and a red moa on passive so I can use the 15s of fury (F2) and 5s of quickness to crank out well over ten shots at like 60% crit chance in under 5s. Fury is beast.

Ive done the signet build too, it was better when levelling and using melee weapons, but the crit build is just to good to pass up, and at 80, forget melee altogether.