Guild Wars 2

Allie Murdock.8152:

If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?

Just musing!

What if things were tweaked to encourage a mix of stowing and having the pet out? Combine the F1 and F3 to be a toggle, and make the new F3 a stow. Introduce a pet synergy meter that builds as the pet attacks, and that meter gets spent when a player used the F3 to equip the pet as an aspect, with a new special F2 ability that the Ranger can use. Sort of like mixing Warriors Adrenaline and Necros Death Shroud. The Beastmaster traitline could then also boost the rate at which this meter builds and the strength of the passive stats that get inherited.

Karl McLain.5604:

mtpelion.4562:

Wilderness experts should be masters of poisons. Therefore, Rangers should have the most potent poisons available.

Great point here and I agree. I would be awesome to see a way to increase poison potency for the Ranger and it’s something we’ve been talking about internally as well. We’ll keep looking into it and see if there’s something that can happen here.

Aren’t thieves poisons while survivalists are cure experts….Both depending on line?

Why do traps have to be ONLY condition damage? Why not a hybrid.

What if the spike trap did a solid amount of physical damage? What if they all did solid damage? This would open up new avenues for power trapper builds, especially if a trait was added to cleanse/transfer conditions when traps activate!!!

Aggrostemma.1703:

Give us the option to stow the pet in combat.

If the pet is stowed, the ranger gets one class specific ability of the pet as F2, and a slightly bonus to one attribute. Bear: 160 vitality, Drake:160 toughness, etc… The special abilities can be:

Your attacks inflict bleeding for 10 seconds (30 sec cooldown)
Your next attack causes blind (20 sec cooldown)
Your next attack puts you in stealth for 3 seconds (40 sec cooldown)
etc…

If the pet is not stowed it can uses the current abilities. The ranger looses the stowed boons and abilities.

Put the stowed and not-stowed traits in the Beastmaster trait line… Like: if you release your pet, you keep the passive boon for 5 seconds. Something like this…

Oh, and make the pet fire the F2 instantly, give them dodge or permanent AE reduction and basic 25% movement speed and increased range. Such you don’t have to change the AI code and you can make us happy.

I suggested this in another thread, but I think I must share this here too.

Chokolata.1870:

No matter how good ones pet control is, there will still be game modes and situations where the pet is 100% useless or a massive burden. On the top of my head:
-WvW
-Aetherblade dungeon, now fractal
-Twilight arbor
-Arah
-Maw boss fight
-Dynamic molten duo boss fight
-Mai trin boss fight
-etc…

There are 2 ways to approach this. Perma stow or a massive pet survivability buff. WoW did it with a 75% damage taken reduction from AoE.

I would prefer the stow option with a minor buff when stowed. It lets people roleplay the classic archer arhetype that is missing from this game.

How about my suggestion that they be allowed to continue attacking even when dead (but no longer draw agro)? This would allow you to use your pet in all of those situations.

There are still the cases where you just don’t want the pet to draw any agro (like the Maw fight), but I would think the solution there is to just tweak those mobs’ AI to never target pets.

Nike.2631:

Lone Wolf: While your pet is stowed you gain a +25% bonus to Power and Condition Damage.

Change that to “Revert the damageloss caused by the pet” and I’m in.

Blind Jimmy.1634:

What if the Aspect replaced the existing (and generally agreed problematic) F2 skill? What if it functioned more like an Engineer’s toolkit and replaced the player’s 1-5 skills until they either hit the weapon-swap key or actively used the pet again?

While thepet is stowed (or turned into an auro), your F skliis could look like this:
F1 – Ingite Hit (like the Ignite the Flame Legion Stalker is using)
F2 – Poisoned Hit
F3 – Sharpening Stone Hit
F4 – Bilinding Hit
Each effect holds for 5 shots or 5 seconds.

Allie Murdock.8152:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?

I think this is a sensible idea which pleases both parties (pet vs. no pet). Granting the Ranger a visible aspect of the pet would be extremly awesome (e.g. shapeshifting bodyparts) but as already mentioned would probably take too much work. It might also be covered up with armor. Something I don’t want to see is ‘Hobosacks Ranger Edition’. Auras/particle effects might end up not being distinguishable enough visually (What aura is he in? Bear? Canine? Feline?).

Linking the effect to the animal family is a great idea. But I’m concerned about the balance of the effect in general. It should make a difference but I feel that actively using the pet should be more beneficial. Otherwise you would encourage too much passive gameplay. I would not like to see people perma-stow their most offensive pet to gain a flat damage increase etc. The auras could also turn out to be second class Spirits which would be sad.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?

I’m a bit surprised by this idea since I’d expect moving two traits being an ‘easier’ change than moving stats which will affect all traits within the respective lines.

I personally do not feel that Traps fit the theme Skirmishing even if you can whittle down your opponents with them. For me Skirmishing is more hands-on. But that might just be my opinion. Moving the stats could help Traps. I personally would prefer this set up:

Marksmanship

• Power
• Critical Damage

Skirmishing

• Precision
• Condition Duration

The critical damage will work nicely with opening strike and improves power Rangers. I prefer condition duration as stat for Skirmishing because it effects every condition since not all Traps are focussed on damaging conditions. It also fits the theme of whittling down someone in contrast to condition damage.

The thing I would not like about this change: It basically doen’t change anything. Trappers will still have a very high trait investment. They will also still go for 30 Wilderness Survival as long as there is no alternative for Empathic Bond. Even if alternatives were added traitwise Trappers will most likely end up going x/30/30/x/x because of the condition damage in Wilderness Survival. No build diversity.

Alternative stat combinations I would not like:

Marksmanship

• Power
• Critical Damage

Skirmishing

• Precision
• Condition Damage

The offensive stat potential when going 30/30/x/x/x scares me.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Xaylin.1860:

[WvW/PvP] Increase build diversity by adding sources of active condition removal.

…

I agree that the ranger profession lacks active condition removal which limits build diversity. It is definitely something we are looking to improve upon in the not too distant future. =)

Wheee! I’ll take that as a March patch hint.

Ohoni.6057:

Chokolata.1870:

No matter how good ones pet control is, there will still be game modes and situations where the pet is 100% useless or a massive burden. On the top of my head:
-WvW
-Aetherblade dungeon, now fractal
-Twilight arbor
-Arah
-Maw boss fight
-Dynamic molten duo boss fight
-Mai trin boss fight
-etc…

There are 2 ways to approach this. Perma stow or a massive pet survivability buff. WoW did it with a 75% damage taken reduction from AoE.

I would prefer the stow option with a minor buff when stowed. It lets people roleplay the classic archer arhetype that is missing from this game.

How about my suggestion that they be allowed to continue attacking even when dead (but no longer draw agro)? This would allow you to use your pet in all of those situations.

There are still the cases where you just don’t want the pet to draw any agro (like the Maw fight), but I would think the solution there is to just tweak those mobs’ AI to never target pets.

Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even able to hit most worldbosses.
To let them attack while dead would turn PvP or WvW small encounters into a mess and we still wouldn’t be viable for dungeonruns.

Game mode
PvE

Proposal Goal
Pet attacks and abilities

Proposal Functionality
For example Defy Pain on Brown bear is hard to notice a boon showing that Defy Pain is on.
And Knockdown’s on Canine pets shuld be more noticeable also a little boon just before it uses the knockdown so you can combo

And all the non F2 skills that helps the ranger in some way shuld also be a boon before it uses it.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.

-I feel some form of active defense is needed for pets (in Pve). If it’s not permastow then something else, perhaps a button that puts their appearance into downed petmode & then saves them from dmg for 2 seconds, or a trait that makes pets dodge when we dodge :-)

-What would happen if pets would become immune to all red circles in pve? What’s the risk in that?

-An idea to make permastow less off a problem for the devs (aka to not go against the basic ranger design philosophy): Punish the player heavily for stowing the pet in combat, like 75% dps loss while stowed, or 75% movement impairment – pets are heavy! This would still be useful in some situations, but it would prevent it from being overused for sure.

-Pet dies to red circles?! Np, the ghost of the pet could keep attacking with different ghastly abilities in a weakened state.

Rick.5781:

Keeping the pet on passive in order to achieve an invulnerable pet also sacrifices all damage the pet is meant to contribute. Stowing the pet and boosting the ranger’s damage makes more sense.

And I would be ok with making the pet completely invulnerable and untargetable while in passive mode as well. This would remove the need for a permastow, though those that hate the pet mechanic entirely may not be pleased. I for one am not against pets, but wish they weren’t as useless as they are. Buffing their resistance to AoE, making them be able to attack WHILE moving, increasing their melee attack range, giving them cleave, having their stats scale with the ranger’s stats, allow F2 to be instant on pressing it, etc. would all help make the pet less useless and more viable. If however the pet CANNOT be made to be a viable option under the current system, I am also not against buffing the ranger’s damage, but I will miss some of the versatility my pet brought me in some RARE PvE scenarios.

That’s why you have the option of sending your pet out again. There will always be more situations in most game modes, where the pet is more valuable out. Even with permastow buffing the ranger, people who kept their pet stowed at all times would be gimping themselves. I honestly believe they’d also be the tiniest minority. Most Ranger players don’t hate the existence of the pet mechanic, they hate it’s execution. The fact that the pet is dead-weight in too many (note: too many, not most) occasions and actually a liability in others.
Perma-stow with buff would allow everyone a chance to enjoy the pet mechanics by removing those occasions where the pet is a problem. The fact is that Rangers are debuffed by 30% whenever the pet is not directly attacking. That debuff is the main source of aggrovation for a ranger player when pet death is unnavoidable.
Take that away, fix the class.
Imagine how amazing the Ranger COULD be to play if they weren’t a hinderence to their groups. Think of the options and tactics that would open. In PvP a player could have their pet stowed, do the same damage as everyone else, then suddenly change styles by sending out their pet to heal, guard or attack an opponent from behind, giving an opponent an extra threat to worry about mid-fight, instead of the present mechanic where opponents simply insta-kill the pet or ignore it knowing it won’t ever hit them and attack the pitiful ranger with their kitten attacks. Using the pet at the right time, after the full-damage ranger has already immobilized or at least slowed the opponent.

In WvW or PvE open/dungeon, the pet can be used for CC, healing and distraction. It’s an assest until you hit an area/obstacle that’s guarenteed to kill it. At which point, with the present mechanics, the ranger has no choice to but to let the pet die and accept their damage being kitten by 30%, hindering themselves and the team.
How do we deal with that? Either we change NPC AI and combat mechanics throughout the game, alter terrain, obstacles and boss mechanics in dungeons, all for the sake of one class, or we make the pets stowable while buffing the ranger.

We can’t just make pets invlunerable, that would be so OP, wouldn’t fix the obstacle issues and would still be a detriment in some boss fights.
Just increasing HP and/or lowering damage received would still imba PvP, in open-world PvE it wouldn’t guarentee survival in AoE and wouldn’t fix problems with bosses. The last year and a half of band-aid health increases has proven that.
Having pets dodge on their own and able to attack players on the move, would require overhaul of NPC AI which devs are reluctant to do.

So what’s left? It’s a splint rather than a band-aid, a crutch. It isn’t what the devs (somewhat obsessively) want for rangers either but perma-petstow with buff, is the only fair mechanic I can see, which would fix gameplay problems with the class, while not gimping rangers or overpowering them, without requiring an overhaul to most ranger abilities or altering utilities, without overhauling AI or combat mechanics.
It should be a relatively quickfix, that would be extremely effective at breaking the cycle of ranger-hate, while opening up more gameplay options and tactics for rangers and their teams. It could also be removed down the line without too much issue, if the Devs find a way to fix the problems.

Specific Game Mode
PvP mostly

Proposal Overview
Give more options to the pets

Goal of Proposal
Raise the pet’s utility and impact in the actual combat

Proposal Functionality
1) Pets hits moving targets once in 6-10 seconds if the movement speed is similar. For DPS pets this is a severe handicap; Pet’s base speed should be increased by 10-20% or the attack’s range should be increased.

2) Pets F2 skills have little overall impact in the combat (excluding a couple of them), this is partialy caused by the cast delay and partialy by the skills effects. Direct buffs (ex. red moa) should have shorter cast times and stronger effects, Boars shoul put the item directly in you hands, frontal attacks should have a free turn movement after the cast time.

3) Having only one active skill limit the amount of interaction with the pet; F1 should toggle between Attack and Return. F2 and F3 should be used to control 2 of the pet’s active skills.

4) Pet-only traits are underwhelming for the most part; Malicious Training, Pet’s Prowess, Expertise Training should be mergend in a Offensive training trait and Agility Training, Concentration Training, Compassion Training should became Support training. Adding to that, Rending Attacks, Stability Training and the old Vigorous Training should be merged on one trait Specialization training. Up them to master trait for balance.

Associated risks
Pet skills and damage need to be balanced again to avoid power creep on some combinations.

Xaylin.1860:

Linking the effect to the animal family is a great idea.

I press for the aura to be additional to the damagerevert if the ranger stowes his pet. The whole idea of permastowing is to be more effective in certain encounters.
I do agree that using the pet should give you bonuses you lose if you don’t use the pet but the damage must be revertet if the pet is stowed.

What if Pets had a “Utility” and a “Combat” mode.

Utility Mode
The pet is at your side or running around / flying around nearby. Provides boons to allies, uses it’s utility skills, etc. The pet is 100% unattackable in this mode. It’s the equivalent of stowed, but it’s still there and visibly still doing things.

Combat Mode
The pet is out, attackable but also attacks, and uses offensive utility.

Sina.9208:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.

-I feel some form of active defense is needed for pets (in Pve). If it’s not permastow then something else, perhaps a button that puts their appearance into downed petmode & then saves them from dmg for 2 seconds, or a trait that makes pets dodge when we dodge :-)

-What would happen if pets would become immune to all red circles in pve? What’s the risk in that?

-An idea to make permastow less off a problem for the devs (aka to not go against the basic ranger design philosophy): Punish the player heavily for stowing the pet in combat, like 75% dps loss while stowed, or 75% movement impairment – pets are heavy! This would still be useful in some situations, but it would prevent it from being overused for sure.

-Pet dies to red circles?! Np, the ghost of the pet could keep attacking with different ghastly abilities in a weakened state.

1. Dodging when we dodge would still be insta-death in many occasions, we’re not always in the same timed red-circles or attack arcs. Playing Possum wouldn’t save them from most boss mechanics and/or obstacles and some AoE goes on for far longer than a couple of seconds. This wouldn’t fix their inability to hit players, moving targets or bosses. They’d still be dead weight. Any time the pet isn’t directly attacking, the ranger is essentially debuffed

2. Immunity to red circles, same problem as 1.

3. The ranger would suffer less of a penalty for simply letting the pet die. Either way the ranger does 30% inherently less damage and you’d have them slowed on top of that? This would be worse than the present situation by making the ranger even MORE of a liability. Even if you just had pet-stow without the buff, ranger would still be dealing nerfed damage. Why group with a ranger who inherently deals almost one third less damage than you in the situations your group will be facing, when you could take any other class? Don’t forget that rangers have other problems in the eyes of other classes bseides the pet.

4. -Pet dies to red circles?! Np, the ghost of the pet could keep attacking with different ghastly abilities in a weakened state. Then what? They become immune to all damage while continuing to attack? Why not just have them invulnerable in the first place? Back to no.1. Dead-weight etc.

Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even avle to hit most worldbosses.

Duh. The “non-targetable” element would be specifically to address the relatively few encounters in which you don’t want pets, clones, golems, etc. distracting bosses, like the Jade Maw fight.

To let them attack while dead would turn PvP or WvW small encounters into a mess and we still wouldn’t be viable for dungeonruns.

It shouldn’t. As you’ve noted, Rangers are tuned so that 30% of their damage is offloaded onto their pets, allowing pets to attack while dead would just ensure that Rangers would always be doing 100% damage, as I believe you thought they should. I don’t see how that would not be viable in dungeon runs, since you could effectively ignore the things that usually kill pets, since the pet would be just as useful to you “dead,” the only time you’d need to keep them alive is if you intended them to tank for you (which isn’t usually necessary in zergs and groups).

As for PvP situations, players would just have to get used to the new meta that there’s no reason to even try killing the pets, just focus on killing the Ranger, when he dies, the pet dies too.

We can’t just make pets invlunerable, that would be so OP, wouldn’t fix the obstacle issues and would still be a detriment in some boss fights.

Pets should just ignore/not trigger traps and environmental obstacles at all, there’s no reason why they should, given how out of control they are. Enemy mobs typically don’t set these things off, pets should have the same flagging or something.

Having immortal pets would not be OP, so long as they could not hold agro after death, since Rangers are already balanced for permanent pet DPS output. If that’s not the case, if that would be too much total DPs, then they could then tone down their DPS output a bit. They are essentially a type of DoT.

Tempus.9540:

Moment of Clarity I sort of see what you we’re going for, but the lack of interupts we have, combined with poor bonus/Defiant mechanics make it unappealing as a minor, nevermind Grandmaster. As a suggestion for GM Traits in this tree, quite a few classes pack a plus 15% crit chance trait of some kind. (Guardian Right Hand Mastery, Warrior Heightened Focus) Would it be too powerful to give one of these conditional plus 15% chances to Rangers as well? Possible suggestions are: When Vulnerability stacks on target are at 10+ , While your pet swap is on Cooldown or While you are moving. All 3 options would synergise with some part of the Ranger class.

Coming from playing an Interrupt Mesmer in PvP I got to say that I would love to have such a trait on my Mesmer. Granted, the main bonus only works with Shortbow and Greatsword but the increase in CC duration is amazing. Rangers could need an offhand weapon with a Daze to increase the usability if this trait. But they don’t lack interrupts in general (LB#4, SB#5, GS#5, A#4).

The only issue I have is the bonus granted on interrupt. The Attack of Opportunity basically only benefits a Greatsword since Rangers lack bursty attacks beside Maul. Maybe changing/improving the bonus on interrupt would make this trait a lot more appealing. Of course, this is from a PvP perspective. Interrupt traits are junk in PvE.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Xaylin.1860:

Linking the effect to the animal family is a great idea.

I press for the aura to be additional to the damagerevert if the ranger stowes his pet. The whole idea of permastowing is to be more effective in certain encounters.
I do agree that using the pet should give you bonuses you lose if you don’t use the pet but the damage must be revertet if the pet is stowed.

I can see where you are coming from regarding the damage revert. However, as said earlier, this would just encourage passive gameplay in comparison to Rangers who actually use their pet. Actively using the pet should always result in more damage output than when stowing it since it requires more effort. Everything else does not make any sense from a balance perspective. Otherwise nobody will bother using the pet which totally defies the purpose of a pet class.

Ohoni.6057:

Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even avle to hit most worldbosses.

Duh. The “non-targetable” element would be specifically to address the relatively few encounters in which you don’t want pets, clones, golems, etc. distracting bosses, like the Jade Maw fight.

To let them attack while dead would turn PvP or WvW small encounters into a mess and we still wouldn’t be viable for dungeonruns.

It shouldn’t. As you’ve noted, Rangers are tuned so that 30% of their damage is offloaded onto their pets, allowing pets to attack while dead would just ensure that Rangers would always be doing 100% damage, as I believe you thought they should. I don’t see how that would not be viable in dungeon runs, since you could effectively ignore the things that usually kill pets, since the pet would be just as useful to you “dead,” the only time you’d need to keep them alive is if you intended them to tank for you (which isn’t usually necessary in zergs and groups).

As for PvP situations, players would just have to get used to the new meta that there’s no reason to even try killing the pets, just focus on killing the Ranger, when he dies, the pet dies too.

We can’t just make pets invlunerable, that would be so OP, wouldn’t fix the obstacle issues and would still be a detriment in some boss fights.

Pets should just ignore/not trigger traps and environmental obstacles at all, there’s no reason why they should, given how out of control they are. Enemy mobs typically don’t set these things off, pets should have the same flagging or something.

Having immortal pets would not be OP, so long as they could not hold agro after death, since Rangers are already balanced for permanent pet DPS output. If that’s not the case, if that would be too much total DPs, then they could then tone down their DPS output a bit. They are essentially a type of DoT.

I can see the point you’re trying to make but I’m not convinced. You try to eliminate the damageloss simply by having an immortal pet. That however doesn’t fix all the problems I’ve mentioned in a previous post and I’m concerned that this will mess around with certain gameplay aspects.

Ohoni.6057:

Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even avle to hit most worldbosses.

Duh. The “non-targetable” element would be specifically to address the relatively few encounters in which you don’t want pets, clones, golems, etc. distracting bosses, like the Jade Maw fight.

To let them attack while dead would turn PvP or WvW small encounters into a mess and we still wouldn’t be viable for dungeonruns.

It shouldn’t. As you’ve noted, Rangers are tuned so that 30% of their damage is offloaded onto their pets, allowing pets to attack while dead would just ensure that Rangers would always be doing 100% damage, as I believe you thought they should. I don’t see how that would not be viable in dungeon runs, since you could effectively ignore the things that usually kill pets, since the pet would be just as useful to you “dead,” the only time you’d need to keep them alive is if you intended them to tank for you (which isn’t usually necessary in zergs and groups).

As for PvP situations, players would just have to get used to the new meta that there’s no reason to even try killing the pets, just focus on killing the Ranger, when he dies, the pet dies too.

We can’t just make pets invlunerable, that would be so OP, wouldn’t fix the obstacle issues and would still be a detriment in some boss fights.

Pets should just ignore/not trigger traps and environmental obstacles at all, there’s no reason why they should, given how out of control they are. Enemy mobs typically don’t set these things off, pets should have the same flagging or something.

Having immortal pets would not be OP, so long as they could not hold agro after death, since Rangers are already balanced for permanent pet DPS output. If that’s not the case, if that would be too much total DPs, then they could then tone down their DPS output a bit. They are essentially a type of DoT.

Is it really necessary to “duh” the person you’re responding to? Not a very contructive attitude there.

Having immortal pets is worse than pet-stow, especially if you include a death mechanic to control their effectiveness as it stinks of abusability and diminishes the pet role. Why even have a pet if it’s just being treated as a DoT? The devs have specifically stated that this is not the vision of pets they want. People would just ignore the pet as there’d be no incentive to do otherwise. In fact in many occasions, getting the pet killed as quickly as possible and leavign it that way, would be preferable, optimal even.
The pet is supposed to be a partner. Stowing them to keep them out of unavoidable danger is far more in keeping with the overall theme, since there is still the incentive to utilise them and work alongside them in the majority of occassions.
Furthermore, it wouldn’t fix the AI issues. Pets still wouldn’t be able to hit moving targets.

Stow isn’t ideal for the pet-class vision, but it’s the best of a bad bunch until the devs are ready to overhaul AI/combat completely.

I can see the point you’re trying to make but I’m not convinced. You try to eliminate the damageloss simply by having an immortal pet. That however doesn’t fix all the problems I’ve mentioned in a previous post and I’m concerned that this will mess around with certain gameplay aspects.

Which problems, what would it mess around with? The whole point of the CDI is to kick ideas around until they’re either rejected as being completely worthless or honed to a razor sharp edge. If you see potential flaws in that idea, list them so that I can either try to figure out a way around them, or abandon the idea as unworkable.

Is it really necessary to “duh” the person you’re responding to? Not a very contructive attitude there.

I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were going for “constructive” in the post I was responding to, given that it didn’t seem to reflect actually reading the post you were commenting on. I mean, you did say “Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even avle to hit most worldbosses.” in response to a post where I specifically noted that the pets should be able to deal damage after death, meaning that getting hit by AoEs wouldn’t be a huge problem anymore.

Having immortal pets is worse than pet-stow, especially if you include a death mechanic to control their effectiveness as it stinks of abusability and diminishes the pet role. Why even have a pet if it’s just being treated as a DoT?

Flavor. Why even have weapons if all they are is a way to deal damage? Why even have spell effects? Why not just have all the player avatars be cubes that float around, invisibly applying damage numbers to other cubes (or maybe spheres for enemy mobs)?

But no, you give them a sword or a bow because it’s cooler to have them hitting each other with swords and bows. Same thing here, it’s cool for you to send a hawk or a spider after the enemy instead of an invisible DoT, so let’s do it!

The devs have specifically stated that this is not the vision of pets they want.

Maybe, but it seems truer to their vision than no pets at all, right? And pets cannot remain in their current form, for the reasons brought up over and over. Ideally pets would have impeccable AI, able to effortlessly avoid any attack or obstacle that a human player would, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon, so in lieu of that, allowing them to largely ignore those sorts of attacks in a way that is not overpowered or abusable seems to be by far the best compromise. It would certainly be better than having the “stowed” build be a viable one, right?

People would just ignore the pet as there’d be no incentive to do otherwise.

Yeah, they pretty much should ignore the pet under this meta. You could maybe apply some debuffs to slow them down, dodge to avoid their attacks, that sort of thing, but since you couldn’t take them off the board entirely without defeating the Ranger attached to them, targeting the pet directly would not be a good use of time. But as many have noted, in the current meta pets tend to die almost immediately anyways, so pet targeting is not something that has ever yet been “balanced.”

Furthermore, it wouldn’t fix the AI issues. Pets still wouldn’t be able to hit moving targets.

Maybe. For that I was thinking, couldn’t they make it so that pets have a range of, say, 2-3 times melee distance for their melee attacks, but that they always try to stay closer than that to the target? So like Bear Slash has a range of 130, couldn’t they bump that up to 390, but have the bear always try to stay within 130 range when they can manage it? That would mean that it would always try to be within melee reach of the enemy (so it wouldn’t be harder for enemies to hit), but that it would be able to take wide swings at the enemy and not get stuffed by enemies that stay just outside normal melee range. If the bear is within 200 range of an enemy and takes a swing with a 400 range attack, there’s no reason it shouldn’t land.

Ohoni.6057:

Which problems, what would it mess around with? The whole point of the CDI is to kick ideas around until they’re either rejected as being completely worthless or honed to a razor sharp edge. If you see potential flaws in that idea, list them so that I can either try to figure out a way around them, or abandon the idea as unworkable.

If you’re using bows, your pet has to close the distance first, it has to stay in range of the target, it isn’t influenced by buffs (nourishment or stacking sigils), most of our conditionremoves just shift the condition to our pet, which would allow is to deal damage but hinders our pet to deal damage.
To put it simple: With a pet you have the same chance of success as without but you have a doubled chance of failure.

I would like to express my point of view about the trap traits and the discussion of changing them to Wilderness Survival or keeping them in Skirmishing.

There have already been a few threads about how mandatory traits are generally bad for the game, given the investment. With traps you are basically pigeonholed to 30 trait points and 3 utility skills to make the utility skills remotely useful. Taking those 3 utility skills should already be plenty of investment, in my opinion.

I would suggest at to lower the trait point requirement of the trap enhancing traits to 20 points at maximum, allowing more hybrid builds with only 1 or 2 traps (thrown or not.) And it would resolve some issues with changing them to the Wilderness Survival trait-line, which as said before, makes sense.
Not just because of GW1 nostalgia but also because you would not have to tinker with the trait-lines’ inherent attributes.

To get us on the same page again:

The omnipresent flaw with the ranger mechanic

The overall damage the ranger can deal, which should be around the level every other class can deal, is divided to him and his pet. This fact is the reason for all unbalances.
Even with a working pet AI, shared buffs all the way and a decent controllability over the pet this issue wouldn’t been gone.

• If you give one guy 100% damage, he has a 50% chance of failure and a 50% chance of success. He is either able to deliver his damage and wins or he isn’t able and fails.
• However if you split this 100% damage on two guys, they will have only a 33% chance of winning, since their chance of failure is doubled. If just one guys fails to deliver his damage, the other guy will fail as well.

This issue gets further increased by the fact, that one guy, the pet is controlled by an AI, which willl never be as respondive as a normal player would be, which increases the chance of failure.

Ohoni.6057:

Is it really necessary to “duh” the person you’re responding to? Not a very contructive attitude there.

I’m sorry, I didn’t think you were going for “constructive” in the post I was responding to, given that it didn’t seem to reflect actually reading the post you were commenting on. I mean, you did say “Our pet don’t die to beeing targeted. They die to massive AoE. Furthermore our pets aren’t even avle to hit most worldbosses.” in response to a post where I specifically noted that the pets should be able to deal damage after death, meaning that getting hit by AoEs wouldn’t be a huge problem anymore.

Having immortal pets is worse than pet-stow, especially if you include a death mechanic to control their effectiveness as it stinks of abusability and diminishes the pet role. Why even have a pet if it’s just being treated as a DoT?

Flavor. Why even have weapons if all they are is a way to deal damage? Why even have spell effects? Why not just have all the player avatars be cubes that float around, invisibly applying damage numbers to other cubes (or maybe spheres for enemy mobs)?

But no, you give them a sword or a bow because it’s cooler to have them hitting each other with swords and bows. Same thing here, it’s cool for you to send a hawk or a spider after the enemy instead of an invisible DoT, so let’s do it!

The devs have specifically stated that this is not the vision of pets they want.

Maybe, but it seems truer to their vision than no pets at all, right? And pets cannot remain in their current form, for the reasons brought up over and over. Ideally pets would have impeccable AI, able to effortlessly avoid any attack or obstacle that a human player would, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon, so in lieu of that, allowing them to largely ignore those sorts of attacks in a way that is not overpowered or abusable seems to be by far the best compromise. It would certainly be better than having the “stowed” build be a viable one, right?

People would just ignore the pet as there’d be no incentive to do otherwise.

Yeah, they pretty much should ignore the pet under this meta. You could maybe apply some debuffs to slow them down, dodge to avoid their attacks, that sort of thing, but since you couldn’t take them off the board entirely without defeating the Ranger attached to them, targeting the pet directly would not be a good use of time. But as many have noted, in the current meta pets tend to die almost immediately anyways, so pet targeting is not something that has ever yet been “balanced.”

Furthermore, it wouldn’t fix the AI issues. Pets still wouldn’t be able to hit moving targets.

Maybe. For that I was thinking, couldn’t they make it so that pets have a range of, say, 2-3 times melee distance for their melee attacks, but that they always try to stay closer than that to the target? So like Bear Slash has a range of 130, couldn’t they bump that up to 390, but have the bear always try to stay within 130 range when they can manage it? That would mean that it would always try to be within melee reach of the enemy (so it wouldn’t be harder for enemies to hit), but that it would be able to take wide swings at the enemy and not get stuffed by enemies that stay just outside normal melee range. If the bear is within 200 range of an enemy and takes a swing with a 400 range attack, there’s no reason it shouldn’t land.

That’s just it, any fix that would allow the pet to ignore attacks, assuming they fix melee on top, would break the game. A ranger would set the pet on someone then just build to dodge away. They’d never even have to fire a shot to take down someone. I like your idea for a melee fix, with the right numbers it could work and could even be fitted with pounce/retreat animations perhaps. Coupled with an immortal pet, however, I don’t see how the result could be anything other than game-breaking. And without that AI/combat fix, I fail to see how else we could have them avoid that damage.

Besides, I really don’t think that people would have perma-stowed pets throughout the game. Pets offer too many advantages outside of these problematic encounters. Someone building for permastow would be perma-borked. I for one would much rather have a pet I need to care for but can be occasionaly stowed, than a perma DoT that I don’t care about. From what I’ve read across the last year and a half, I think the majority of players calling for perma-stow feel the same way.

-Specific Game Mode
PvX

-Proposal Overview

Trait Line changes, addressing “aspects” and ranger utilities

Goal of Proposal
Ranger Trait lines are a bit of a mess and need some reworking and trait changes in each line.

I really like the idea of aspects but not at the loss of the pet, pets and ranged combat was why i chose a ranger!

as mentioned before the ranger was meant to be a sustained damage class and not a burst dps class. in order for us to be able to sustain dps rangers need more access to CC weapon skills and utilities.

-Proposal Functionality

-Traits-

so for the first part of this we need to look at the trait lines. trap traits should be moved from skirimishing as mentioned and brought into wilderness survival. traits should be added to skirmishing that will cc our target on crit/hit to allow us to hit with our attacks.

A long look needs to be taken at the Nature Magic and Beastmastery lines. Most of these traits are pretty useless and don’t get used at all. build diversity is a real problem for the ranger.

-Aspects/Pets-

While i like the idea of aspects i dont want this to happen at the expense of the pet. even with a somewhat broken AI the pet is the reason i have a ranger. pet stats need to be increased by at least 15-20%. they gain nothing from out stats and with the introduction of ascended gear and more difficult content to match it they are getting outpaced.

Aspects should recquire a pretty heavy investment in beast mastery, an “Aspect Ranger” should be all about the relationship between ranger and pet whereas a Marksman or Trapper would focus on those utilites. This should come with a good improvement to pet damage and survivability. the primary reason players don’t invest in beastmastery in any game mode is because the pet dies far too easily.

-Utilities/Weapon skills-

in order for the ranger to be the sustained damage and skirmishing class you want them to be they need access to more CC’s. a trait that gives bonus condition duration would be a big help to the class and more access to immobilizes, fears and other CC types as a part of the weapon attack chain or tied to a utility. allowing rangers to be the CC heavy class would also make them useful in dungeons if Defiance was nerfed/changed. this would also open up new playstyles for dungeons where CC could be useful against specific bosses.

weapon damage across the board needs an increase but especially for the class specialty weapon, Bows.

-Associated Risks

There is a possibility of of the ranger putting out more DPS than intended if pet AI is fixed and weapon damage gets increased. other than that adding CC could be an issue in PVP but not one that would break or overpower the class they would just become similar to the stun lock warrior classes.

As for the discussion about keeping the pet or not. I recall reading that AI improvement is going to be hard, but I take it not impossible. If the developers are determined to work on that, please go with it. With better AI the only thing that the player lacks is reliable control options for the pet.

It would be nice to have an alternative solution until that time has come (and some good ideas have sprouted from the “Moa Morph’ed pet experiment”), however the ever returning bullet point about pets are stowing the pet in combat and the need to dodge in the event of one-shot mechanics.

* This experiment was simply showing how the pet hits its’ target when under the effects of the Mesmer elite skill: Moa Morph. It gave the pet a lunge effect on the auto-attack, resulting in the pet dealing higher damage and being much more reliable when attacking moving targets.

Since I posted a suggestion earlier about the pet control options, I would like to also add that a player controlled dodge mechanic for the pet would help a lot also. Which I somehow failed to include in my original post.

The original idea was to have F3 trigger a pet dodge, either with a cool-down or draining a small portion of the player’s endurance bar. I had forgotten about this suggestion since the patch that toned down the trait: Natural Vigor. It would also change the associated risks with my suggestion from “Guard!” requiring a functionality change to the Ranger getting a much higher skill ceiling.

Edit: I would like to add another suggestion to the issue of pets failing to dodge. It is a simple change to the Wilderness Survival minor trait: Companion’s Defense. You gain Protection and your pet gains Aegis when you dodge roll. It would also allow the trait some synergy with Fortifying Bond (which allows pets to get any boon the player gets.)
It is more of a work-around than anything, but it would suffice in some events where the pet would otherwise die to those notorious 1-shot mechanics.

The only possible solution to this mess of a profession that is the ranger ,will be to split the class in two:

The Ranger : master skirmisher and survivalist.
Preparations as class mechanic.
Bows,swords and daggers.
Traps
Signets
Stances(gw1 integral part of every ranger build)
Survival.

The Beastmaster: Nature affined ,pet sinergy pet bonds.
Pet as mechanic (a fully fleshed pet ai separated from mob ai)
Greatswords,hammer,staff.
Signets
Spirits
Nature rituals
Shouts.

There you have it every one happy,those who want an skirmisher survivalist and those who wants to hug their furry friend and go on adventures across tyria.

barabajaga.7652:

The only possible solution to this mess of a profession that is the ranger ,will be to split the class in two:

The Ranger : master skirmisher and survivalist.
Preparations as class mechanic.
Bows,swords and daggers.
Traps
Signets
Stances(gw1 integral part of every ranger build)
Survival.

The Beastmaster: Nature affined ,pet sinergy pet bonds.
Pet as mechanic (a fully fleshed pet ai separated from mob ai)
Greatswords,hammer,staff.
Signets
Spirits
Nature rituals
Shouts.

There you have it every one happy,those who want an skirmisher survivalist and those who wants to hug their furry friend and go on adventures across tyria.

Dood, seriously, did you post this knowing that early versions of the game, pre-beta, had two classes; pretty much these? If not, that’s seriously brilliant. They were scrapped but bits and pieces of them were then combined into the ranger we have now. This is why the ranger trait tree and utilitiy combination has always been such a mess. It’s two classes, your proposed two classes, frankensteined into one

In Regards to “Aspect of the Pet”

I think I love this. It’s true – sometimes we don’t want our pet. Heck, sometimes we don’t want our allies to have their pet (the infamous Warden II).

We really lack group support though, and I’d love it if some, if not all, “Aspects” are team oriented over self-supportive.

I’ve played my ranger for 2k+ hours. I’ve done every bit of content with her—I haven’t missed a living story, I’ve done every dungeon, every path, completed WvW season 1—and countless other hours of WvW—killed Tequatl many times and the Wurm a few as well. If I had ways of offering more to the team, I know that rangers would be more desired in all aspects of the game. If rangers had the option to perma stow pets and benefit from it, they’d be wanted in many places that they currently aren’t as well.

I don’t dislike having a pet, and I would LOVE for the pet mechanic to be improved upon to drastically increase it’s approval rating, but I just can’t see that happening when there’s 7 other classes will either need or desire attention too. I think this “Aspect” idea is, perhaps, a “lazy” solution, but I’d take it in a hot second because it would be much faster and much easier (to implement and to balance) than “improving the pet”.

I’d like to re-iterate the need for rangers to have reduced dependancy on GM traits.

With the exception of survival skills, there is no ultility choice which really works well without the corrisponding GM trait.

There are 1-2 individual exception like Signet of the Hunt doesnt need a trait, or Protect Me doesnt, but in general signets, traps, shouts and spirits are simply not usuable without a GM.

The memsmer build I use atm have not a single Major or Minor GM trait and its great. Thats how it should be.. GM traits should provide huge bonuses (like PU does on a mesmer) but not nessesarily be required in order to use utlities.

I don’t see the need for a no-pet Ranger, sorry. If they later want to add a separate class, the “Sniper”, sure. Who uses Pistols, Rifles, Bows, Staves, Scepters, whatever is ranged. Sure.

But as far as the Ranger goes, I really feel like all hinges on the pet AI and pet control.

• Pet AI needs to be fixed. This is a larger-than-ranger issue which also heavily affects Necromancers and Mesmers. This should be – and hopefully is – number 1 on the priority list for whoever is working on the engine itself. It’s really that big a deal, sorry devs. I’m a Mesmer, and the shoddy movement / attack AI is aggravating at best. :S
• Add more control. Pet controls should switch the pet between “modes”, one being defensive which makes the pet take ~75%-85% less AE damage and ignore AE conditions and CC (has to be targetted!).

Just a quick tough: AN doesn’t even have to FIX the AI right now if its that consuming as some says so. They can trick it with an illusion;
If Pet attack skills are applied from the ranger when we say so, and not from the pet itself, then it laggs not. We may see the pet away from the target but the damage is still applied. It would be still annoying, but at least, now its about a visual problem, not a meaningful meta problem.

Anyway, hows that if someone jumps down or up even a “flying” pet can’t keep track?
I would make them ignoring the terrain axys

@ Snipers: When Crossbow cames in, okay. Otherwise, somehow I wish this to be Engineer thing with rifle.

Carighan.6758:

I don’t see the need for a no-pet Ranger, sorry. If they later want to add a separate class, the “Sniper”, sure. Who uses Pistols, Rifles, Bows, Staves, Scepters, whatever is ranged. Sure.

But as far as the Ranger goes, I really feel like all hinges on the pet AI and pet control.

• Pet AI needs to be fixed. This is a larger-than-ranger issue which also heavily affects Necromancers and Mesmers. This should be – and hopefully is – number 1 on the priority list for whoever is working on the engine itself. It’s really that big a deal, sorry devs. I’m a Mesmer, and the shoddy movement / attack AI is aggravating at best. :S
• Add more control. Pet controls should switch the pet between “modes”, one being defensive which makes the pet take ~75%-85% less AE damage and ignore AE conditions and CC (has to be targetted!).

No offence but you and a lot of others need to understand that a ranger is much more than a guy who has a pet and a bow. A ranger is a druid ,scout, tracker, beastmaster, hunter and so on. Because of this rangers are the most debated class in fantasy RP. They were almost completely removed because of this from D&D Next. So please stop with the “rangers are supposed to have pets if you don’t like this play something else”. I want to and will play a ranger but forcing a pet on me makes no sense. The same way they could force elementals, minions, turrets, spirit weapons on other classes. For them it’s a choice. Why can’t it be for us too?
This post is not targeted directly towards you, but the general idea that rangers must be beastmasters. We even have different trait lines. Why should a marksman/skirmisher have and rely on a pet? Or a druidic spirit ranger? Or a scout?

Sorry if I was a bit aggressive but people need to realise that everyone wants a different ranger and everyone is completely right. But rangers are much bigger than personal preferences. They are (should be) one of the most flexible classes able to fulfill a wide variety of roles and not just beastmasters.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Anyway, hows that if someone jumps down or up even a “flying” pet can’t keep track?
I would make them ignoring the terrain axys

As far as I am aware they use NPC pathing thus they cant jump nor fly.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

To get us on the same page again:

The omnipresent flaw with the ranger mechanic

The overall damage the ranger can deal, which should be around the level every other class can deal, is divided to him and his pet. This fact is the reason for all unbalances.
Even with a working pet AI, shared buffs all the way and a decent controllability over the pet this issue wouldn’t been gone.

People tend do forget that Mesmers are in the same boat as Rangers. Every Mesmer relies on Phantasms to deal damage. Even Shatter Mesmers rely on them to a certain extent. Also, shattering itself is bound to pet AI (pathing). Mesmer damage is rather low without them. You do not get any compensation for not using them.

The damage from Phantasms quite obviously works for Mesmers while it is lackluster for Rangers and their pets. The reason probably is that Illusions are locked onto a target which reduces AI issues (pathing, targeting). Phantasms also are better at actually hitting their target. But that is because they only got one special move and lack an AA. So why is this important when looking at Rangers? It implies that a Ranger pet could actually compensate for a lower base damage if mechanics were introduced which aid short commings of the pet AI (e.g. larger melee ranger, better responsiveness). We all know by now that they won’t rework the AI. But as Allie said: Improving some aspects of the AI might be enough to make the pet viable.

Stowing a pet and gaining some benefits is reasonable for certain areas of the game. Perma-stowing and receiving a 100% damage compensation for it defies the purpose of a pet class. If you don’t like pets, don’t play a pet class. It is a design decision by ANet that the Ranger is the pet class. You might like it or not but that is their vision.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

• If you give one guy 100% damage, he has a 50% chance of failure and a 50% chance of success. He is either able to deliver his damage and wins or he isn’t able and fails.
• However if you split this 100% damage on two guys, they will have only a 33% chance of winning, since their chance of failure is doubled. If just one guys fails to deliver his damage, the other guy will fail as well.

While I get where you are coming from this is highly exaggerated and also not how percentages work. Actually, spreading power also leads to spreading your risk of failing. Which means that if you personally fail (e.g. locked down by stun or whatever) your pet can still act and make the difference. Of course, spreading the power only is reasonable if the pet AI is sufficient. Which it is not right now. However, this doesn’t mean that Rangers should be able to dispose their pet completely. It does mean that the AI has to be improved.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

This issue gets further increased by the fact, that one guy, the pet is controlled by an AI, which willl never be as respondive as a normal player would be, which increases the chance of failure.

That is true for every pet class ever created in any MMO. No Ranger issue, really. Since the Ranger is designated to be the GW2 pet class people will have to deal with the pet AI in some way.

I’ve read this this thread and all the Devs comments and I must say this is a nice discussion/feedback thread going on.

With that being said I must confess that I’m starting to get worried about what’s going to happen to my ranger.

Am I worried about the class being reworked and killing my current build(s)?
Nope

Am I worried about the class becoming something other than the what it was supposed to be from the onset of this game?
No

I am TERRIFIED that we’ll become the next OP/FoTM class on the block, and since we aren’t the class that begins w/ W we’ll get kitten d w/ the nerf bat. Full Pen….no doubt

Let’s all be honest with ourselves anyways shall we? Just where are rangers hurting right now?

PvP? Nope they are a staple on PvP teams

Ah WvW you might be thinking!!

Nope we are perfectly fine in WvW. We do great in keep assaults/defense. We do great in small scale battles, and havoc squad play. The ONLY place rangers truly lack is in GvG fighting, and this game mode isn’t supported by the dev team.

PvE we are lacking as well……well dungeon PvE. Open world is a different story though :P

The best part about all of this is in the areas where we suffer on our rangers we aren’t the ONLY class suffering. In fact when you look at other classes they are lacking and passed over more than we are.

So yes let’s discuss MINOR changes (condi removal maybe) since we don’t want what happened to our beloved rangers in the past to happen again.

Thx

Xaylin.1860:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?

I’m a bit surprised by this idea since I’d expect moving two traits being an ‘easier’ change than moving stats which will affect all traits within the respective lines.

I personally do not feel that Traps fit the theme Skirmishing even if you can whittle down your opponents with them. For me Skirmishing is more hands-on. But that might just be my opinion. Moving the stats could help Traps. I personally would prefer this set up:

Marksmanship

• Power
• Critical Damage

Skirmishing

• Precision
• Condition Duration

The critical damage will work nicely with opening strike and improves power Rangers. I prefer condition duration as stat for Skirmishing because it effects every condition since not all Traps are focussed on damaging conditions. It also fits the theme of whittling down someone in contrast to condition damage.

The thing I would not like about this change: It basically doen’t change anything. Trappers will still have a very high trait investment. They will also still go for 30 Wilderness Survival as long as there is no alternative for Empathic Bond. Even if alternatives were added traitwise Trappers will most likely end up going x/30/30/x/x because of the condition damage in Wilderness Survival. No build diversity.

I totally agree with the swap on Condition Duration and Critical Damage. It would make a very interesting change, allowing to actually pick skirmishing traits without touching marksmanship.

It is however true though that trappers would then go x/30/30/x/x as long as there is no other option than Empathic bond. By changing that, I believe there would be more build diversity in that regard.

What I actually also like about the fact putting condition duration there. You could go for a crit/pet/condition build, where you pick a bit skirmishing to scale precision, then pet gains might on critical hits. In wilderness survival you pick pet condition damage and also go into beastmastery. There are alot of Crit/Condition builds that would be able with that trait change.

Xaylin.1860:

Alternative stat combinations I would not like:

Marksmanship

• Power
• Critical Damage

Skirmishing

• Precision
• Condition Damage

The offensive stat potential when going 30/30/x/x/x scares me.

Don’t do this! You then would have to give the wilderness Survival the Condition duration, where it doesn’t really fit. Also, makeing precision/power/crit damage/condition damage into two traitlines is ridicolous. Also you would have to change alot of traits. It would also allow a few more builds, but doing something like that makes ranger traits either go 30/30… or x/30/30….

Shadowbane.7109:

The same way they could force elementals, minions, turrets, spirit weapons on other classes. For them it’s a choice. Why can’t it be for us too?
This post is not targeted directly towards you, but the general idea that rangers must be beastmasters. We even have different trait lines. Why should a marksman/skirmisher have and rely on a pet? Or a druidic spirit ranger? Or a scout?

Because your pet isn’t a type of ability, it’s your class mechanic.
As such, the pet is the mechanic of your class.

I understand your argument, but it seems aimed worng. You are talking about a minion-less Necromancer, that’s equivalent to a Ranger not using traps. Very much possible.
A mantra-less Mesmer? Easy.
A banner-less Warrior? Done.

Buuuut…
An Elementalist not switching stances?
A Necro never using Death Shroud?
An Engineer not using the tool belt skills?

These don’t happen, or only happen as a result of players not being good at the class.

Class mechanic <→ ability type.

If Rangers had the 4 traps on the F1-F4 skills, and the pet were instead some type of utility skill (multiple, actually :P ), then fair enough. You could play without a pet. In turn, you couldn’t play without traps, they’re equipped either way.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Many of you have suggested removing traps from the Skirmishing line. It seems the primary reason for this is because it is the crit line while traps are primarily focused on conditions.

Given the idea behind skirmishing (for Ranger, we expect them to be able to survive longer while whittling their opponent down), would it maybe make more sense to leave the traps there and perhaps swap the stats with a different line?

Allie, I personally dont want the change because I like to also go down and grab empathetic bond. I also think pairing the crit chance and crit damage in the same line is the only way power builds are even viable because i can pick those up on 1 line.

However, I could possibly see skirmishing (though I wouldn’t like it because it messes up power builds more)
Crit chance and condition damage
WS having
Toughness and crit damage

If you were willing…….no other class has done this. (not due power and condi duration in the same line)

Marksmanship
Power and Crit damage / ferocity

Skirmishing
Crit chance and condition duration

I think the later could be really good for rangers ability to skirmish and trap. Plus putting power and crit damage in the same line could be the boost power rangers have been looking for.

I JUST CAME UP WITH IT THANKS TO YOUR IDEA!!

Risks include a slight redesign to opening strikes and the vulnerability aspect of Marks line. Some players who used Marks line and non crit builds may feel like they are wasting stats now.

However I think the pros to buffing power ranger and making trap rangers feel like they are getting some good stat our of skirmishing will overall outweigh these cons by a heavy margin.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Normalize weapon recharge traits across all professions.
Combine Eagle Eye trait with Quick Draw trait (and increase Shorbow range to 1100-1200).
Combine Martial Mastery trait with Two Handed Training trait (and increase Sword damage by 5%).

Goal of Proposal
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Recharge#Traits_that_reduce_recharges_of_weapon_skills
Most traits which reduce weapon skill cooldown also enhance the weapon effects. For the sake of balance, all such traits for all professions should do both, or all should be split into two different traits. You shouldn’t favor certain professions by letting them get both effects with a single trait, while others have to take two traits.

Proposal Functionality
Taking a weapon recharge reduction trait also enhances the weapon’s effects in some way.

Associated Risks
The ranger cooldown reduction traits affect multiple weapon types, while other profession traits mostly affect a single weapon. You’ll have to decide whether to leave it as-is or break apart the ranger traits into multiple weapon traits. I should point out however that except for Spear, ranger builds which use two weapons affected by a single trait are rather rare.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Remove the 1 second cast time on Guard.

Goal of Proposal
All shouts in the game except Guard are instant-cast. This change makes Guard like all other shouts.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shout

Proposal Functionality
Obvious.

Associated Risks
Should be minimal to none. The synergy of Guard with Nature’s Voice won’t really be enhanced because it’s already easy to get permanent swiftness + regen even with the 1 sec cast time. Alternatively, reduce the cast time to 1/2 or 3/4 sec. 1 sec is long enough that it’s difficult to predictively target Guard against a moving target (so your pet will intercept instead of chase as with F1).

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Allow Lightning Reflexes (stun breaker) to be used when knocked down.

Goal of Proposal
This seems to be a bug which needs fixing. LR is a stun breaker, but the skill is briefly disabled when you’re knocked down, thus defeating its usefulness as a stun breaker.

Proposal Functionality
Lightning Reflexes skill is not disabled when knocked down.

Associated Risks
None. Brings it in-line with other stun breakers.

Specific Game Mode
All, but mostly PvP

Proposal Overview
Add immobilize removal to Lightning Reflexes (skill) and Evasive Purity (trait).

Goal of Proposal
You state the ranger is a skirmisher, yet due to the poor active condition removal options for ranger, their skirmishing is completely shut down by immobilize. These changes will help the ranger continue to skirmish through an immobilize. Evasive Purity is also rarely used and this will increase its use.

Proposal Functionality
Using Lightning Reflexes (stun breaker) will remove any immobilize before evading back.
If Evasive Purity is traited, dodging while immobilized will remove the immobilize and dodge normally.

Associated Risks
Possibility of improving ranger skirmishing capability too much.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Ranger gets priority for pet F2 buffs (if in range).

Goal of Proposal
Other professions get utility skills which grant AOE buffs. Rangers get utility skills which enhance their pets, and pet skills which grant AOE buffs. Currently, the pet’s F2 buffs go to the 5 nearest players, meaning the ranger sometimes does not get the AOE buff he provides. This change allows the ranger to always get the AOE buff he provides, just like other professions always get the AOE buff they provide.

Proposal Functionality
If ranger is in range of a pet buff, he gets it first. Then other players, then pets, then NPCs.
If ranger is out of range of a pet buff, it behaves as it currently does.

Associated Risks
None.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Bug fix: Sic Em buff on pet should not be removed by pet commands.

Goal of Proposal
The Sic Em skill gives the pet a 10 second damage and movement speed buff. There’s a bug which causes this buff to disappear if you give the pet a command (F1, F2, or F3). Using another pet shout (e.g. Guard) overwrites this buff too. The reverse (Guard, then Sic Em) works and results in the pet getting both buffs, so this is definitely fixable.

Proposal Functionality
You can give the pet commands after using the Sic Em skill, and the buff will still last its full duration.

Associated Risks
None. Bug fix.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Bug fix: Allow a dodge immediately after a leap attack.

Goal of Proposal
This seems to be a bug which greatly impacts Ranger Sword autoattack (2 of the 3 attacks are leaps). Immediately after a leap attack finishes, you are prevented from dodging for about 1/2 or 3/4 second. If you tap and movement key right after the leap, then you can dodge immediately after. But you cannot go straight from a leap to a dodge. My guess is there is some overzealous animation lockout going on.

Proposal Functionality
You can dodge immediately after a leap.

Associated Risks
None.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Bug fix: Bonfire (Torch 5) should affect 5 targets.

Goal of Proposal
The Bonfire skill creates an AOE fire field, but only affects 3 targets as if it were a melee cleave. As an AOE, it should affect 5 targets.

Proposal Functionality
When Bonfire is used, up to 5 targets within the field take damage.

Associated Risks
At 8 sec duration with a 25 sec cooldown (20 sec when traited) this has a max uptime of 40%. Flame Trap also tops out at 40% uptime when traited, and 80% fire field uptime for a properly traited ranger may be too much. I know elementalists can have 100% fire field uptime. I don’t know how the other professions compare though.

Specific Game Mode
All

Proposal Overview
Hunter’s Call and Throw Torch must have a target.

Goal of Proposal
It’s possible to “waste” these two attacks by using them without a target. If you try to use the Sic Em skill without a target, the game gives you a red message saying you must have a target. The same should be implemented for these two skills.

Proposal Functionality
If no target is selected and either of these skills used, you get a red message saying you must have a target, and the skill is not used.

Associated Risks
It may be possible to aim Throw Torch without a target so that it hits something. But I haven’t found any situation where that’s preferable to first picking a target. Likewise I haven’t found a way to hit something with Hunter’s Call without a target.

Not really a proposal. Just wanted to remind the devs that pet stats aren’t affected by gear. With the recent releases of ascended gear, the pets have become relatively weaker. Will Anet do something to compensate that?

Carighan.6758:

Shadowbane.7109:

The same way they could force elementals, minions, turrets, spirit weapons on other classes. For them it’s a choice. Why can’t it be for us too?
This post is not targeted directly towards you, but the general idea that rangers must be beastmasters. We even have different trait lines. Why should a marksman/skirmisher have and rely on a pet? Or a druidic spirit ranger? Or a scout?

Because your pet isn’t a type of ability, it’s your class mechanic.
As such, the pet is the mechanic of your class.

I understand your argument, but it seems aimed worng. You are talking about a minion-less Necromancer, that’s equivalent to a Ranger not using traps. Very much possible.
A mantra-less Mesmer? Easy.
A banner-less Warrior? Done.

Buuuut…
An Elementalist not switching stances?
A Necro never using Death Shroud?
An Engineer not using the tool belt skills?

These don’t happen, or only happen as a result of players not being good at the class.

Class mechanic <-> ability type.

If Rangers had the 4 traps on the F1-F4 skills, and the pet were instead some type of utility skill (multiple, actually :P ), then fair enough. You could play without a pet. In turn, you couldn’t play without traps, they’re equipped either way.

While I agree with parts of the above statement I still don’t see the reasoning behind forced pet use. Although the part about traps from F1-F4. Maybe if we could between class mechanics? We can switch between pets, traps, spirits for Fx skills and have survival utility skills (CAMO! TRACKING!).

Arrys.7145:

Karl McLain.5604:

mtpelion.4562:

Wilderness experts should be masters of poisons. Therefore, Rangers should have the most potent poisons available.

Great point here and I agree. I would be awesome to see a way to increase poison potency for the Ranger and it’s something we’ve been talking about internally as well. We’ll keep looking into it and see if there’s something that can happen here.

Aren’t thieves poisons while survivalists are cure experts….Both depending on line?

Survivalists would be masters of both poisons and cures, because both skills are effectively mandatory for surviving in the wild.

Thieves would not be expected to really know either, since thieves are not assassins, they are stealthy surveillance experts who get into places where they don’t belong.

Well, come to think of it I think that generic “Rangery” abilities on F1-F4 would be interesting, but they’d need a consistent theme. Trapping would be an interesting one, “Scouting” another.

Trapping
F1-F4 are four traps, each distinct in use. Damage, Slowing, Revealing/Debuffing, Buff Shearing.

Scouting
F1: Stealth, lasts briefly, dunno about the cooldown.
F2: Camouflage. Lasts until entering combat or taking any action, breaks on move, cannot be used in combat.
F3: Scavenging. Re-loots a set of corpses, can also re-activate them for partymembers. Effectively gives +X% Magic Find over an infinite number of corpses.
F4: Eye in the sky. Sends out a bird pet straight forward for ~10000 units. Your minimap shows dots for all enemies the bird flies over. It caaaan be targetted and shot down, it flies ~800 units above the ground but has ~1 health.

The latter would ofc have the problem of PvE viability.

Allie Murdock.8152:

As Orca pointed out, some people aren’t as fond of the pets. The idea of the buff would be to appease everyone. Also, what if stowing the pet and having an aspect gave the Ranger some kind of aura that communicated to others they are in that “aspect”? Would it still feel like the pet was a part of you if them being stowed affected your physical appearance?

If not, I don’t think the aspect idea would be a necessity for players. There are definitely things that need to be done to fix Ranger pets in general, and it’s something we are well aware of. If we fixed those things, but maybe also added in the aspect idea, I think we’d be in a spot where everyone would be pleased, no?

Just musing!

I love this aspect idea, how is ANet going to be addressing this aspect idea though in terms of visual? what new mechanics do we get from these aspects?

How I see this is switching to a certain pet family type, shows a temporary visual of that type, kind of like how Ele switches to attunement you can see visually what attunement they switched into.

Then after that it should just be an icon on the Ranger’s screen that other players could see as well.

Allie, while I have no problem with you folks considering implementing a perma-stowed petless Ranger option, I am however somewhat concerned in the general direction the CDI has now taken. By that I mean, that it now appears to be the central focus of this CDI, as opposed to suggestions that would help the core Ranger mechanic of our current Pet abilities.

Primarily the 3 most outstanding issues being:
1. Providing our current pets a mechanic to help mitigate AOE damage in Dungeons/Fractels and WvW (such as the suggestion for an innate pet mitigation of X% to AOE damage in dungeons and wvw).
2. Adjusting the pet mechanics to allow for a greater ability to hit moving targets.
and
3. Improving pet command (F2) responsiveness.

While it’s fine to explore many avenues, I hope you guys do not lose sight of these 3 core issues. Because for those less interested in a “pet-less” Ranger option, these issues are very important, and the “pet-less” option does not really address them at all, but rather, it merely provides an “opt-out” to having actual Pets. And if in fact Anet decides to go down the route of a strong pet-less Ranger option, while not addressing the original core pet mechanics, then the class will have evolved in a direction that few players desired when they originally chose to roll the Ranger class.

I’ve little doubt that there are many options on he table that you folks could take to address these 3 core issues (some of those suggestions have already been made in this thread) that do NOT require a complete AI overhaul or profession redesign. Pet-less Ranger option – sure, explore away – but please don’t forget that portion of the player-base that wants to roll WITH their actual pets, and not just an “aspect/aura” of them.

Thank you.

Carighan.6758:

Well, come to think of it I think that generic “Rangery” abilities on F1-F4 would be interesting, but they’d need a consistent theme. Trapping would be an interesting one, “Scouting” another.

Trapping
F1-F4 are four traps, each distinct in use. Damage, Slowing, Revealing/Debuffing, Buff Shearing.

Scouting
F1: Stealth, lasts briefly, dunno about the cooldown.
F2: Camouflage. Lasts until entering combat or taking any action, breaks on move, cannot be used in combat.
F3: Scavenging. Re-loots a set of corpses, can also re-activate them for partymembers. Effectively gives +X% Magic Find over an infinite number of corpses.
F4: Eye in the sky. Sends out a bird pet straight forward for ~10000 units. Your minimap shows dots for all enemies the bird flies over. It caaaan be targetted and shot down, it flies ~800 units above the ground but has ~1 health.

The latter would ofc have the problem of PvE viability.

Stealth would make more sense in a skirmisher setup. F3 seems unbalanced. Maybe make it a passive swiftness that we loose on entering combat. F4 sounds ok. maybe a hunter line could have a single target spot.

Also a “hunter” and “skirmisher” lines would be nice. This solves the pet problem too but might take a bit to set up. Could we get a red comment on this idea?