Guild Wars 2

Atherakhia.4086:

The aspect comes in by making the Ranger more selfish in nature. Instead, the Ranger takes on the ‘Aspect of the Cat’ which gives them the additional ferocity with an additional bonus since it’s now only for the Ranger and not his group. In addition to this, each pet family is given a unique ‘aspect power’. Since someone above liked the idea of stealth, you could just make that the cat aspect power (even though the Jaguar has it).

ALTERNATIVELY: You do the reverse and you could make the pet the more selfish option and make the aspect more group friendly which may help with the PvE issues some, but I’d much prefer using the pet to be more rewarding than using the aspect.

I personally would prefer ‘Aspects/Auras’ being group friendly instead of selfish. As proposed yourself, they could grant a certain bonus like Spotter does. Additional Power, Precision, Condition Duration, Boon Duration, Regeneration (not the boon)…

The reasons why I would prefer it this way…

• Stowing a pet would not make a solo Ranger stronger than a Ranger who is using the pet actively since it is a group buff which quite obviously has to be weaker than a selfish buff.
• Pets tend to fall short in group scenarios a lot more than in solo scenarios (WvW, dungeons, fractals). That is the area where the Ranger actually needs an alternative for the pet. Effects like Spotter would make Rangers more valuable for the group.

Atherakhia.4086:

Personally, I’d much rather Longbow remain the long range power option for this class. I like the idea you’re introducing, but wouldn’t the Axe be a better fit? It allows for more versatility because you have an off-hand option, it already has an identity crisis because of the shortbow being so similar, and it’s overall a pretty weak weapon in dire need of some improvement.

Longbow just needs a nudge in the power direction and it would be a viable weapon (removing barrage for kill shot would be my preferrence because barrage simply doesn’t work for this class right now).

For clarification: I did not mean to introduce buffs which are applied through Longbow skills. I was talking about utilizing pet traits/mechanics or utility skills which result in sharing boons (e.g. Fortifying Bond) while using a ranged weapon. The closing the gap part was prefering to specific pets or even families. For example, Dogs, Birds or Cats could have a build in ‘charge’ on an ICD to close a gap. So this also does not directly affect the Longbow.

Nike.2631:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

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.

Any earlier version of that proposal tried to do that with a straight damage buff, but that doesn’t actually work due to the differences in how Power-based and Condition damage are delivered. Plus pets are clearly intended to provide non-DPS contributions to Ranger gameplay, and “cashing them out for nothing but Deeps” loses some of that nuance.

The other thing that has to be acknowledge is that Aspects or Lone Wolf shouldn’t be better than… or even equal to… the advantages pets provide. They’re basically saying “I’ll pay a small loss in effectiveness to get rid of the annoyance of watching Fluffy die over, and over, and over…”

It should be a reluctant alternative, not the definitive solution to bad pet AI.

That last bolded line is where we will have to agree to disagree. It should be a definitive solution to a problem that they are not going to devote the resources neccessary to properly fix. Now, if it was at some point properly fixed then I could concede to your “should be” point.

General Changes to the ranger pets.

PvE (would have effect on WvW and could also effect PvP)
Proposal Overview
As the pets are part of the ranger their lack of gear and traits of their own are taxing the ranger’s effectiveness. So I propose we redesign pets (and traits) to have increase the synergy of Ranger and pet.

Goal of Proposal
To (along with other changes) bring more functionality of the ranger and the pet as a unit.
Proposal Functionality
The current pets would be redesign to have their normal Primary stats (Power, Precision, Vitality and toughness) and then would differ on secondary stats based on individual pet. Example a jaguar would have more critical damage than a lynx while the lynx would have increased condition damage. The pet would then scale within their normal stat array with the base set around the idea that a ranger in masterworks equipment pet is not as strong as rare geared ranger’s pet, and so on.
Pets or Pet families would have a focus stat that would interact with some trait changes detailed in a following proposal.

Associated Risks
Would require some numbers work to get it correct and perhaps a bit of trait redesign to fully get the pet-and-ranger-as-one feel that the profession really needs.

Ranger Traits Series 1/5

PvX
Proposal Overview
The ranger traits are in fact a mess, I can only infer that the profession was one of the few cases where the traits were mostly balanced in the not tier system from the first couple of beta weekends.

Goal of Proposal
To bring the traits up to a more aceptable level of effect and to instill that the ranger and pet are one working unit.

Proposal Functionality
Marksmanship
Minors
Adept – Targeted Strikes: The first strike in combat and every 30 seconds thereafter causes vulnerability [5 stacks for 5 seconds]. Note Hunter’s shot could have a recharge built in.
Master – Malicious Training: Increases the duration of conditions caused by your pets [x%]; You and your pet do more damage to foes with a condition [5% for you, 10% for pet].
Grandmaster – Precise Strikes: Targeted Strike always critically hits; Targeted Strikes recharges lowered.
Major
Steady Focus: Grant an increase on the pets damage as well (~5%)
Alpha Training: Your pet gains Targeted Strikes. Targets Strikes recharges [x%] faster.
Keen Edge: Procs on both the ranger and the pet
Signet Mastery: Let’s bring it in line with other professions. Signets recharge 20% faster; Activating a signet grants you and your pet 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds. Or could be an active condition cleanse instead.
Predatory Instinct: Give the pet the similiar chance for proc
Spotter: If it isn’t too difficult to program allow the pet to be an radius point as well. So if the ranger wants to fight at a distance a melee pet can benift the ranger’s allies.
Eagle Eye: Longbow and Harpoon Gun shots pierce and have greater range.
Marksman’s Prowess: Increases Longbow and Harpoon Gun damage by [10-20%] and reduces their cooldowns by 20%.
Signets of the Beastmaster Dropped to master tier, if th signets can not acted like everyone else’s s signets then at least make it a little bit easier on build diveristy/use.
Peerless Archer: Gain additional critical hit damage against foes more than 800 units away. (Potentially have the chance scale with longer range.)
Remorseless: You do more damage against vulnerable targets. Vulnerability applyed by you and your pet last longer.
Associated Risks
Could produce a bit of a relearning curve (minimal risk). Time to get the numbers correct and balanced.

Ranger Traits Series 2/5

PvX
Proposal Overview
The ranger traits are in fact a mess, I can only infer that the profession was one of the few cases where the traits were mostly balanced in the not tier system from the first couple of beta weekends.

Goal of Proposal
To bring the traits up to a more aceptable level of effect and to instill that the ranger and pet are one working unit.

Proposal Functionality
Skirmishing
Minor Traits
Adept – Furious Grip: As is.
Master – Pet’s Prowess: Pets do more critical damage; Critical hits landed by the pet heal the ranger.
Major Traits
Tailwind: Gain Swiftness [15 seconds] when swapping weapons in combat. Traiting for permanent swiftness is not unheard of.
Sharpened Edges: You have a 66% chance to cause bleeding [1 stack, for 3 seconds].
Trapper’s Defense: Create a Potent trap when reviving an ally. It could be snake or spike, either would serve the purpose; Potent Spike immobilizes for a second, Potent Snake would blind under changes to Trap Potency.
Primal Reflexes: Release a crack of lightning and gain vigor for 5 seconds upon recieving a critical hit. Cannot trigger more than once every 15 seconds.
Companion’s Might: add in a pet critical hit grant the ranger might (may have to work on it’s interaction with fortified bonds (trait or if it becomes baseline)
Agility Training: Your pet moves faster/ignores the combat speed reduction.
Bloodthirsty: Your critical hits heal your pet. Look, synergy!
Honed Axes: You do 10% more critical damage when weilding an axe in your main hand; Main-hand axe skills recharge 20% faster.
Quick Draw: Shortbow skills recharge 20% faster and have a 33% chance to fire an additional shot. So how would that function with the skills? Crossfire’s second arrow would follow the same rules as a normal crossfire arrow – it bleeds and does piddly damage, or bleeds and does some damage when flanking. Poison Volley’s additional arrow would be fired right behind the center shot, cause poison, and pierce. Quickshot’s second arrow hits for damage and extends the duration of the swiftness. Crippling Shot’s second arrow hits for damage and extends the duration of the cripple and the number of pet attacks that cause bleeding. Concussion Shot’s second arrow does damage and increases the duration of the daze/stun; if the target is stunned by the first shot and turns before the second arrow hits, it will cause stun instead of extending the daze.
Trap Potency: Traps gain additional effects (Fire does more raw damage, frost does damage, spike immobilizes for one second, snake blinds on the first pulse); Conditions caused by traps last twice as long and traps recharge 20% faster.
Moment of Clarity: Change it to allow stacking with other Attack of Opportunity effect.
Associated Risks
Could produce a bit of a relearning curve (minimal risk). Time to get the numbers correct and balanced.

Ranger Traits Series 3/5

PvX
Proposal Overview
The ranger traits are in fact a mess, I can only infer that the profession was one of the few cases where the traits were mostly balanced in the not tier system from the first couple of beta weekends.

Goal of Proposal
To bring the traits up to a more aceptable level of effect and to instill that the ranger and pet are one working unit.

Proposal Functionality
Wilderness Survival
Minors
Master – Expertise Training: Pets do additional condition damage; The ranger recieves X% of the pet’s toughness (or focus stat) as condition damage.
Grandmaster – Peak Strength: add to normal efffect 10% of your toughness is converted to pet’s focus stat
Major
Healer’s Celerity: Increases revive speed by 10%; grants you and your ally 2 seconds of Quickness. Imagine being able to get you heal off just that much faster after being revived by a ranger.
Shared Anguish: Pet removes incoming disables from you and allies near it. Only triggers once per person per 60 seconds.
Vigourous Renewal: You and allies near you gain vigor for 5 seconds when you use a heal skill.
Companion’s Defense: You and allies near you gain two seconds of protection after you dodge. Your pet gains [1-2] seconds of distortion when you dodge.
Wilderness Knowledge: Survival skills remove a condition from allies near you; Survival skills recharge 20% faster.
Oakheart Salve: You or allies near you gain regeneration when you or they are poisoned, bleeding, or burning. Once per person per 20 seconds.
Hide in Plain Sight: You and allies near you gain camoflage when you are disabled. 30 second cooldown.
Sword Mastery: Sword skills recharge 20% faster. You gain increase toughness while wielding a sword (that secondary could use some work, but…)
Empathic Bond: Your pet removes three conditions from you and you remove one condition from your pet every 10 seconds the pet is alive. I don’t understand why we are harming our pets as a grandmaster condition cleanse, it already has counter play focus down the pets.
Associated Risks
Could produce a bit of a relearning curve (minimal risk). Time to get the numbers correct and balanced.

Xaylin.1860:

Atherakhia.4086:

The aspect comes in by making the Ranger more selfish in nature. Instead, the Ranger takes on the ‘Aspect of the Cat’ which gives them the additional ferocity with an additional bonus since it’s now only for the Ranger and not his group. In addition to this, each pet family is given a unique ‘aspect power’. Since someone above liked the idea of stealth, you could just make that the cat aspect power (even though the Jaguar has it).

ALTERNATIVELY: You do the reverse and you could make the pet the more selfish option and make the aspect more group friendly which may help with the PvE issues some, but I’d much prefer using the pet to be more rewarding than using the aspect.

I personally would prefer ‘Aspects/Auras’ being group friendly instead of selfish. As proposed yourself, they could grant a certain bonus like Spotter does. Additional Power, Precision, Condition Duration, Boon Duration, Regeneration (not the boon)…

The reasons why I would prefer it this way…

• Stowing a pet would not make a solo Ranger stronger than a Ranger who is using the pet actively since it is a group buff which quite obviously has to be weaker than a selfish buff.
• Pets tend to fall short in group scenarios a lot more than in solo scenarios (WvW, dungeons, fractals). That is the area where the Ranger actually needs an alternative for the pet. Effects like Spotter would make Rangers more valuable for the group.

Atherakhia.4086:

Personally, I’d much rather Longbow remain the long range power option for this class. I like the idea you’re introducing, but wouldn’t the Axe be a better fit? It allows for more versatility because you have an off-hand option, it already has an identity crisis because of the shortbow being so similar, and it’s overall a pretty weak weapon in dire need of some improvement.

Longbow just needs a nudge in the power direction and it would be a viable weapon (removing barrage for kill shot would be my preferrence because barrage simply doesn’t work for this class right now).

For clarification: I did not mean to introduce buffs which are applied through Longbow skills. I was talking about utilizing pet traits/mechanics or utility skills which result in sharing boons (e.g. Fortifying Bond) while using a ranged weapon. The closing the gap part was prefering to specific pets or even families. For example, Dogs, Birds or Cats could have a build in ‘charge’ on an ICD to close a gap. So this also does not directly affect the Longbow.

I agree completely. I think a case could be made for the aspect/pet to work in either scenario.

I went with my proposal for 2 reasons:

1.) I felt that the unique pet F2 options (assuming ANet makes a pass through them and makes each unique and powerful) giving more options would offset the lower stat boost reasonably well. You have 3 different cats for 3 different F2 options. If you went with the aspect, you’d only have the aspect of the cat plus the one aspect power so less options.

2.) Pets right now make up a lot of our utility and I wanted to keep reinforcing that the pet is our group support tool. Plus it has the advantage of being in melee range of the boss (assuming melee pet of course) whereas a Ranger with their aspect on may not be in melee range to give their group a buff.

But you’re absolutely right, especially with WvW. I would like to think after this CDI stuff translates into actual class changes, the pets would be viable in WvW and we could use them. But if not, doing things the reverse would give the Ranger an enormous amount of utility without concern that their pet is dead and would push the pet more into the roaming/dueling side of things which is probably a more logical place for them to be.

Ranger Traits Series 4/5

PvX
Proposal Overview
The ranger traits are in fact a mess, I can only infer that the profession was one of the few cases where the traits were mostly balanced in the not tier system from the first couple of beta weekends.

Goal of Proposal
To bring the traits up to a more aceptable level of effect and to instill that the ranger and pet are one working unit.

Proposal Functionality
I would like to see Fortify bond made baseline, but if not then go with the new Concentration training
Nature Magic
Adept – Rejuvenation: Gain Rejuvenation when you reach 75% health. (Flat hp recovery, can stack with regeneration)
Master – Concentration Training: Boons applied by your pet last 50% longer; any boon you get is shared with your pet.

Majors
Circle of Life: You create a Healing Spring when you are downed; Your pet creates one when it is defeated. [Can only happen once every 30 seconds; the pet and the ranger are on seperate cooldowns].
Shout Mastery: Shouts recharge 20% faster. Yes, we moved the shout traits to be in the same tree.
Evasive Purity: Dodging removes some comination of blind, poison, or torment (10 second cooldown). Would having a way to remove the new condition be out of line?
Two-handed Training: add Spear and Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster
Bountiful Harvest: You gain a random boon every X seconds in combat. (limiting the list according to balance/flavor of the ranger)
Associated Risks
Could produce a bit of a relearning curve (minimal risk). Time to get the numbers correct and balanced.

Please note my spirit proposal: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/13#post3690224

Ranger Traits Series 5/5

PvX
Proposal Overview
The ranger traits are in fact a mess, I can only infer that the profession was one of the few cases where the traits were mostly balanced in the not tier system from the first couple of beta weekends.

Goal of Proposal
To bring the traits up to a more acceptable level of effect and to instill that the ranger and pet are one working unit.

Proposal Functionality
Minor Traits
Adept – Instinctual Bond: ad Pet swap recharges 20% faster.
Master – Beastmaster’s Training: Pets heal for more; X% of the pet’s focus converted to healing power.
Major Traits
Speed Training: Pets recharge all skills, including f2 skills, 20% faster.
Master’s Bond: Your pet has a bond with you that increases the longer it goes undefeated or deactivated. This should be based on TIME, not KILLS. Perhaps it should only stack in combat as a means of balance. And of course you should keep it when going underwater with an amphibious pet.
Enlargement: Moved from Nature Magic
Thrill of the Hunt: Activating the f2 skill gives allies near the pet fury, might, and swiftness for 10 seconds.
Companion’s Frenzy: Recharges the f2 skill when the pet reaches 50% health. 90 second cool down.
The Master tier of Major Traits should remain as is, with one major change: The family restriction should be removed. This allows for some customization of what your pet can do, and allows for swapping out-of-combat based on the situation.
Zephyr’s Speed: You and your allies gain ~6 seconds of Quickness when you swap pets.
Associated Risks
Could produce a bit of a relearning curve (minimal risk). Time to get the numbers correct and balanced.

Specific Game Mode
Every game mode.

Proposal Overview
Make it possible to have a build without a pet.

Goal of Proposal
Currently the pet AI is complete trash. Pets die in bosses and zergs because they can’t dodge AoE, players can easily avoid any pet melee attack just by moving a bit because the pet can’t move and attack, the pet path finding sucks in general etc.

Proposal Functionality
Make it possible to choose between a pet and new set of F1-F4 skills. Increase overall stats of build without pet to compensate for lost damage potential.

Associated Risks
If this was implemented very few people would play with pets enabled and the guy who came out with the idea to force the current buggy POS pets on Rangers would look like a complete moron.

Prysin.8542:

However if we do it like this instead;
Marksmanship: Power + Precision
Skirmishing; Condition Damage, Critical Damage
Wilderness Survival; Toughness, Vitality
Nature Magic; Healing Power, Boon Duration
Beastmastery; Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration.

This allows us to the the most possible damage, and be as tanky as possible at any given time. Yes this might ruin trappers as they will lose out on duration, however seeing as most trappers run Carrion + Rabid you get the much needed boost to power, precision, critical damage and condition damage to be a more “hybrid” DPS setup, while speccing into BM Bunker will allow you to go heavy condi with direct damage from pets. Spirits may or may not become a problem area though. Shouts will be way way stronger as you get the much needed healing power bonus for the shout regen.
Wilderness survival will be just that, the BEST survival line in game. Giving us proper “Survival” stats.

That’s gamebreaking good sir. No, we do not move around the primary stats (power, precision, toughness, vitality, class mechanic), those can overpower any traitline easily with more than one in them. No, we change around the secondary stats, like the following, which would fix it so the current builds are allowed to branch out instead of being forced into the same traitlines as they are now.

Marksmanship: Power, Crit Damage
Skirmishing: Precision, Condition Damage
Wilderness Survival: Toughness, Boon Duration
Nature Magic: Vitality, Healing Power
Beastmastery: Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration

Atherakhia.4086:

While you’re right that people go WS, I think most consider the condition damage from it as a perk. Everyone has to go in WS for Empathic Bond because the condition options for this class are so awful.

Not a single trap ranger considers the condition damage a bonus. If we’re going traps, we’re going for full damage, that makes the toughness the bonus here.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Let pets revive on their own after a short period, make all healing also revive the pet.

Goal of Proposal
Since in their current state pets go down so quickly in certain situations decreasing the downtime this causes would be another solution to counter this, just embrace the fact that they’ll down and make it less of an issue by returning them to combat faster.

Proposal Functionality
Once a pet gets downed it will regenerate its health or revive after a few seconds, if the ranger uses one of their healing skills the pet revives instantly.

Associated Risks
None I can think of.

Bran.7425:

So you options you dislike are complete off the table and do not exist then? No, you just choose not to use them.

I don’t really know what you want to say with this sentence.
However, yes I don’t like the bowskills of th other classes from an archer point of view.
And yes, there are ranged pets who don’t have to close the distance. However those pets are far from daling good damage. Furthermore, they neither get effected by the gear I’m wearing nor the traits I’m using. They have their own stats which I can’t change. This undermines any attempt to squeeze the maximum damage out of the ranger as archer.
Let me explain my thoughts:
I want to play an archer, which relies not only on effective bows, but also on good melee combat. The archer could also have a pet, but not for beeing responsible for 1/3 of my overall damageoutput but scouting or distracting the enemy, giving utility or providing support. I don’t like no pet because of the pet itself but beeing just another, yet unreliable way of dealing damage. I rather want to deal the damage myself than rely on an AI to deal the damage.
However I don’t want to take away the possibilty for other players to use the pet also as a source of damage. Yet I don’t want to be forced to use it if I don’t want to.

It should be a reluctant alternative, not the definitive solution to bad pet AI.

I kinda’ get this feeling too.

I agree there are problems with pets. The only thing they’re really bringing to the table an AOE or projectile couldn’t handle better, is the notion of sustain non-reflect-able physical damage. And between pet death and player runspeed, their sustain just doesn’t sustain very well at all. And all we get is broken power building for our trouble.

…But I don’t think making pet temporarily go away is going to change anything.

The profession mechanic is still dissonant with the game at large as an achronological copypasta, it still doesn’t further your gameplay goals in any meaningful way, much less provides a recognizable strength and niche for the Ranger class. It’s just less of your problems, by allowing you to have less of your core gameplay that’s problematic.

It just feels like more Bandaid Solutions, when I was really really hoping somebody would’ve paged the doctor and gone to surgery by now.

Arghore.8340:

Shadowbane.7109:

A ranger is a druid ,scout, tracker, beastmaster, hunter and so on. Because of this rangers are the most debated class in fantasy RP.

I want to subscribe to this notion. Yesterday evening when pondering about the original fantasy ‘Holy Trinity’, consisting of the Warrior (melee), Huntsman (ranged) and Wizard (magic).

Trinity = Tank, healer, dps.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
The pet should be a boon to the ranger, not its bread and, as it is now, stale butter. My proposal is therefore to make the pet optional.

Goal of Proposal
We all know that the pet AI leaves a lot to be desired, but as also know that a complete rework simply isn’t an option at the moment. So, I propose that players traiting in the Beast Mastery line should get full functionality of their pet (and a little extra, I’ll make another post), but others who feel encumbered by it, should have the option to Stow it until called for again by the player.

Proposal Functionality
How will this work then and balance out? When Stowed, the ranger receives a base damage bonus of how much the pet is worth in terms on damage and in addition, a unique boon that’s defined by the pet family. Example: you have a chance to proc Might if you have a canine Stowed, or Protection if it is ursine.

Associated Risks
The risks of this are that rangers become too strong dps wise: especially if they go for Signet of the Hunt, which might lead to one-shot gimmick builds – however, I feel that a skill as highly telegraphed as Maul, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Anet pls. We are going round and round.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Bran.7425:

So you options you dislike are complete off the table and do not exist then? No, you just choose not to use them.

I don’t really know what you want to say with this sentence.
However, yes I don’t like the bowskills of th other classes from an archer point of view.
And yes, there are ranged pets who don’t have to close the distance. However those pets are far from daling good damage. Furthermore, they neither get effected by the gear I’m wearing nor the traits I’m using. They have their own stats which I can’t change. This undermines any attempt to squeeze the maximum damage out of the ranger as archer.
Let me explain my thoughts:
I want to play an archer, relies not only on effective bows, but also on good melee combat. The archer could also have a pet, but not for beeing responsible for 1/3 of my overall damageoutput but scouting or distracting the enemy, giving utility or providing support. I don’t like no pet because of the pet itself but beeing just another, yet unreliable way of dealing damage. I rather want to deal the damage myself than rely on an AI to deal the damage.
However I don’t want to take away the possibilty for other players to use the pet also as a source of damage. Yet I don’t want to be forced to use it if I don’t want to.

So you just aren’t ever going to be happy with this profession then.

Nike.2631:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

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.

Any earlier version of that proposal tried to do that with a straight damage buff, but that doesn’t actually work due to the differences in how Power-based and Condition damage are delivered. Plus pets are clearly intended to provide non-DPS contributions to Ranger gameplay, and “cashing them out for nothing but Deeps” loses some of that nuance.

The other thing that has to be acknowledge is that Aspects or Lone Wolf shouldn’t be better than… or even equal to… the advantages pets provide. They’re basically saying “I’ll pay a small loss in effectiveness to get rid of the annoyance of watching Fluffy die over, and over, and over…”

It should be a reluctant alternative, not the definitive solution to bad pet AI.

The advantage you would get while stowing your pet would be, that you deal the full amount of damage, you’ve invested in. If we discount the armortypes, there should be no difference in basedamage between warrior and ranger. However you lose alot of versatility if you go without a pet. You have no access to the F2 skill, the shouts wouldn’t work without a pet, noone would tank for you. Furthermore, if you invest points into the beastmaster traitline, you should be able to deal more damage with your pet than you would be able without your pet.

Bran.7425:

So you just aren’t ever going to be happy with this profession then.

Let’s see how this CDI turns out.

Atherakhia.4086:

-A very nice opinion-

Or maybe we should rethink LB and SB completely?
Instead of being a defensive offensive AOE + single target long range burst weapon we make it into a single thing;

Specific Game Mode
WvW/PvP

Proposal Overview
Providing a proper role for the Rangers Bow’s.

Goal of Proposal
To distinguish the roles of the Shortbow and Longbow in such a way that they each perform at peak performance in their own “effective range”

Proposal Functionality
Shortbow –
Change #1 – 33% chance to apply poison on hit. Remove bleed and flank requirement.
Change #2 – Change Poison into Chill
Change #3 – Change it with Hunters Shot, applies 5 stacks of confusion upon successful hit. Applies 5 stacks of confusion (self) if the attack miss or is blocked.

Longbow – All skills; Maximum Range; 1500. Remove range addition from Eagle Eye.
Change #1 – Remove range restriction, apply minimum range requirement (300). Splash damage (130) on hit.
Merge Skills; Point Blank Shot & Quickshot New name; Repellent shot #3 – Fire a projectile that knocks back the enemy while jumping backwards with an explosive force. Knockback all ranges – 500. Jump Backwards 300. Blast Finisher, Evade: 1 second. 8 second cooldown.
New Skill; Grueling Terrain #4 – Pulsing medium size AOE; Damages foes moving through it, applies weakness and cripple pr pulse. “field duration; 10 seconds”. 25 second cooldown. Minimum Range; 300
Function when traited (Eagle Eye); Removes 1 boon per pulse
Change #5 – New Name; Feezing Rain – AOE, fire a arrow into the sky, triggering a violent freezing rain. Damaging and chilling enemies. Applies 1 second chill/pulse. Coefficiency up from 0.4/wave to 0.65/wave. Cooldown decreased to 25 seconds. Number of Waves reduced to 10.. Minimum Range; 300

Associated Risks
Hunters shot is awkward with the longbow. Normally, the distance between the enemy, and you, when using the longbow, is too large for hunters shot to be reliable. On the shortbow however, you are very much likely to hit and the fact that the shortbow requires the user to move around a lot more means that the average shortbow user will benefit much more. The loss of the evade means that the shortbow user will be more vulnerable in melee distance, but the benefit of “target dropping” should weigh up for this loss.
By giving the longbow a minimum range requirement on the AA, along with more AOE functions, we allow it to become a long range “artillery” weapon. Applying strong and destructive damage to multiple targets, however at the cost of short range combat vulnerability.
The shortbow is now a proper condition weapon, allowing the user to apply a wide range of conditions (Poison, Bleeding, Cripple, Chill, Confusion, Stun).

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
The pet is said by ANet to be one with the ranger and so integral to its functionality and philosophy, yet as it is now, the pet is a dead weight if you’re in an encounter where AoE is prominent. So while a ranger should always want to keep his pet alive, there should be some form of safety net if the pet hits the fan, so to speak.

Goal of Proposal
Pets die. That has been a truth since Beta and it’s in part due to bad design, in part to players. The goal here is to let a Beast Mastery ranger still be viable if his pet dies, so he won’t be sidelined until his pet revives.

Proposal Functionality
My proposal is that one of the Grandmaster Traits in Beast Mastery be something like “We Are One”: When your second pet dies, the ranger goes into a rage, gaining five stacks of Might, Fury and Quickness (7 sec) as well as a flat damage bonus and each hit heals the downed pet for a small amount. Ideally, the duration of the damage bonus should only last for a little while, so the pet can get back up and normal dps routine can resume.

Associated Risks
Obviously players will kill their pets on purpose to activate it, but since each hit heals the pet until revived, it wouldn’t last very long. Additionally, the trait should have an ICD, so one cannot simply let the pet die over and over for infinite Quickness/Might.

I want to comment on the somewhat ‘factoid’ I posted above here, as this is the reason as to why the ranger has been so much debated. All the nimble medium armour warriors, the bowyers, the beast masters, the druids, the trappers, the loggers, and the general woodsmen. They all want a piece of him, and are trying to get the most out of their fantasy aspect as they can, out of this ‘grown together’ natural huntsman…

Now is this a bad thing? I personally think it doesn’t have to be… The nimble warrior part does add melee to the ranger, it fits with the agility it already had. The axes (logger) do add ranged in a way that adds to the ranger that fits (I am personally very fond of this). The ‘druidy’ aspect does enrich the ranger in it’s independence from all the other classes (mainly wizard) to stand on it’s own. And even the beast master fits well with the nature theme that is already going on.

And even though 2 classes like a ‘ranger/nimble warrior’ and ‘beastmaster/druid’, might be a solution, when you start to fill in some details of these classes you soon come to realise you are doing a lot of players injustice, as you draw this class apart and leave those in the middle with nothing to go for…

Now we don’t know what is in the works with specializations as part of ‘vertical/horizontal’ progression. Which could solve some of the issues especially for the bodged together ranger. But until that we should strive to make the most of the ranger as possible, and to work together to get the most, by making CHOICE the way to give all us different ‘rangers’ the things we long for in our class. And quite possible accept certain thematic features from each other, where they hurt the least, and don’t nullify the choices we want to make.

This leads me to a few suggestions that I personally think should incorporated, some which I will post in the individual suggestion format. And some I will just reiterated in the next post. (to keep this somewhat short and confined to a comment on my own post above).

Vox Hollow.2736:

It just feels like more Bandaid Solutions, when I was really really hoping somebody would’ve paged the doctor and gone to surgery by now.

Surgery isn’t going to happen. Jon Peters and Allie have said as much since they are “big projects” that aren’t going to be tackled. They are only taking suggestions right now. So, as I have said before, until they rewrite the entire code for pet AI independent of Mob AI the problems will presist. I, for one, would love to option out of pets into something they can get right from the get-go.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Prysin.8542:

However if we do it like this instead;
Marksmanship: Power + Precision
Skirmishing; Condition Damage, Critical Damage
Wilderness Survival; Toughness, Vitality
Nature Magic; Healing Power, Boon Duration
Beastmastery; Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration.

This allows us to the the most possible damage, and be as tanky as possible at any given time. Yes this might ruin trappers as they will lose out on duration, however seeing as most trappers run Carrion + Rabid you get the much needed boost to power, precision, critical damage and condition damage to be a more “hybrid” DPS setup, while speccing into BM Bunker will allow you to go heavy condi with direct damage from pets. Spirits may or may not become a problem area though. Shouts will be way way stronger as you get the much needed healing power bonus for the shout regen.
Wilderness survival will be just that, the BEST survival line in game. Giving us proper “Survival” stats.

That’s gamebreaking good sir. No, we do not move around the primary stats (power, precision, toughness, vitality, class mechanic), those can overpower any traitline easily with more than one in them. No, we change around the secondary stats, like the following, which would fix it so the current builds are allowed to branch out instead of being forced into the same traitlines as they are now.

Marksmanship: Power, Crit Damage
Skirmishing: Precision, Condition Damage
Wilderness Survival: Toughness, Boon Duration
Nature Magic: Vitality, Healing Power
Beastmastery: Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration

The other benefit to Ryu’s setup is that your power ranger won’t lose condition duration, which helps with maintaining vulnerability stacks. Given the function of the minor traits in marksmanship, that’s important to keep in mind.

Fenrir.6183:

Arghore.8340:

Shadowbane.7109:

A ranger is a druid ,scout, tracker, beastmaster, hunter and so on. Because of this rangers are the most debated class in fantasy RP.

I want to subscribe to this notion. Yesterday evening when pondering about the original fantasy ‘Holy Trinity’, consisting of the Warrior (melee), Huntsman (ranged) and Wizard (magic).

Trinity = Tank, healer, dps.

I expected this comment, but that is the trinity that turned out to become the best working gaming combo for ‘tank and spank’. The ‘healer’ was originally ‘the wizard’, and healing was just an aspect of his magic. Actually if you go further back this ‘wizard’ was actually a ‘Druid’. The hooded old bearded guy with a kittening staff and tons of knowledge on potions and spells, it was a druid from saga and legend.

Hence I mentioned ‘original’ trinity and not ‘gaming’ trinity

dinner time, some of my comments will have to wait until later tonight

Killsmith.8169:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Prysin.8542:

However if we do it like this instead;
Marksmanship: Power + Precision
Skirmishing; Condition Damage, Critical Damage
Wilderness Survival; Toughness, Vitality
Nature Magic; Healing Power, Boon Duration
Beastmastery; Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration.

This allows us to the the most possible damage, and be as tanky as possible at any given time. Yes this might ruin trappers as they will lose out on duration, however seeing as most trappers run Carrion + Rabid you get the much needed boost to power, precision, critical damage and condition damage to be a more “hybrid” DPS setup, while speccing into BM Bunker will allow you to go heavy condi with direct damage from pets. Spirits may or may not become a problem area though. Shouts will be way way stronger as you get the much needed healing power bonus for the shout regen.
Wilderness survival will be just that, the BEST survival line in game. Giving us proper “Survival” stats.

That’s gamebreaking good sir. No, we do not move around the primary stats (power, precision, toughness, vitality, class mechanic), those can overpower any traitline easily with more than one in them. No, we change around the secondary stats, like the following, which would fix it so the current builds are allowed to branch out instead of being forced into the same traitlines as they are now.

Marksmanship: Power, Crit Damage
Skirmishing: Precision, Condition Damage
Wilderness Survival: Toughness, Boon Duration
Nature Magic: Vitality, Healing Power
Beastmastery: Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration

The other benefit to Ryu’s setup is that your power ranger won’t lose condition duration, which helps with maintaining vulnerability stacks. Given the function of the minor traits in marksmanship, that’s important to keep in mind.

Yes it will, he put condi duration together with pets, just like me…

Surgery isn’t going to happen. Jon Peters and Allie have said as much since they are “big projects” that aren’t going to be tackled. They are only taking suggestions right now. So, as I have said before, until they rewrite the entire code for pet AI independent of Mob AI the problems will presist. I, for one, would love to option out of pets into something they can get right from the get-go.

I don’t think any meaningful change necessarily has to come by way of altering AI. It would certainly help, but otherwise you’d just design around the problem. You just don’t try to make it do things it clearly has problems doing. (Like; if your pet can’t hit running players, then yeah, don’t make hitting players consistently one of the things it’s supposed to be good for.)

And also; where did you get that idea in the first place?
As far as I can tell Allie is encouraging these sort of larger considerations like AI to be a part of the brainstorming.

Either way though, I don’t want this whole CDI to be able stowing the pets. There have been a lot of great ideas outside of this one that will help pets to be a more viable option. Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.

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?

That idea makes sense but, Skirmishing have Precision + Crit damage, which makes more sense in a power line instead of a condition line.

Game Mode Specific
MvM

Proposal Overview

• Give useful to the profession.

Goal of Proposal

• Create a definite role in this game mode.

Proposal Functionality

• (A) See points represented with enemies on mini-map.
• (B) + 0.1% in range of siege weapons. (Ballista, arrows cart, catapul, trebuchet).
• © + 0.5% in damage siege weapons. (Ballista, arrows cart, catpult, trebuchet).
• (D) New Weapons Siege: Traps alarm, use only for Rangers.
• (E) + 0.3% movement speed.

Associated Risks

• (A) only by pofesion Advantage.
• (B) Advantage only by pofesion.
• © Advantage only by pofesion.
• (D) Advantage only by pofesion.
• (E) only by pofesion Advantage.
• (F) Any commander will want to have at least a sentinel in his squad.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Surgery isn’t going to happen. Jon Peters and Allie have said as much since they are “big projects” that aren’t going to be tackled. They are only taking suggestions right now. So, as I have said before, until they rewrite the entire code for pet AI independent of Mob AI the problems will presist. I, for one, would love to option out of pets into something they can get right from the get-go.

I don’t think any meaningful change necessarily has to come by way of altering AI. It would certainly help, but otherwise you’d just design around the problem. You just don’t try to make it do things it clearly has problems doing. (Like; if your pet can’t hit running players, then yeah, don’t make hitting players consistently one of the things it’s supposed to be good for.)

And also; where did you get that idea in the first place?
As far as I can tell Allie is encouraging these sort of larger considerations like AI to be a part of the brainstorming.

Either way though, I don’t want this whole CDI to be able stowing the pets. There have been a lot of great ideas outside of this one that will help pets to be a more viable option. Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.

Jon Peters said it in the Dec 10th Ranger CDI and Allie has said in this Ranger CDI (unless the comments were deleted). I’m not going to go back and find it but you can feel free to look for it. I saw it. I read it. She refered to rewriting the pet AI specifically as a big project and looking specifically just for suggestions right now.

Was easier to find Allie’s post than I thought it would be as it was on page 1:

Allie Murdock.8152:

barabajaga.7652:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Game Mode: WvW (also applies to PvE)

Proposal:
I do not want pets to be stowed during combat. I believe we can make pets work, but it is going to require a lot of effort to fix how they currently are. Improve pets. I will focus 100% of this post to pets.
I have been waiting so long for this CDI thread to open up, and I hope it is read.

I have been playing a ranger since this game was in beta. After a couple thousand hours playing a ranger, here are my thoughts.

Pets:

Pet AI
First, the pet needs a major overhaul, or a major improvement. Pet AI is shared with mob AI as far as we have been told. This needs to change. Mob AI, as everyone knows, is not very intelligent. For example, pets and mobs will run into AOE instead of skirting around it, and can’t dodge. I do remember back in the beta, Anet temporarily implemented a smarter AI for mobs, and they would avoid AOE and were much harder to kill, but the players did not like the new smart AI so it was removed.

Pets and AOE
Since pets are here to stay, and are a large part of our class, they need to be smarter. They need to avoid AOE. If this can’t be done, then they need to take reduced damage when inside of AOEs. If this isn’t an option either, then they need to be able to dodge roll in tandem with the player. If I dodge roll, my pet should dodge roll and not take any damage in those couple of seconds. Right now, whether inside of a dungeon in PvE, or a zerg in WvW, the pet melts at ludicrous speed.

Pet Rooting
Pets are rooted when they attack. This means every melee pet we have is useless in WvW. The pet can not hit a moving target. Every now and then the pet will land a lucky hit, but for the majority of the time, the pet is frantically running, initiating an attack, cancelling said attack, running, etc. In a game where movement is key, pets should be able to attack and move at the same time.

Pets After Death
I remember a time when the ranger could revive their own pet. Please, for the love of the Pale Tree, bring this back! I can not express this enough. Too many times have I been in a WvW skirmish or a dungeon, and my first pet is around 20% health, so I get my 2nd pet out, only to have the 2nd pet immediately one shot because it is standing in AOE. Now I am stuck with no pets for an entire minute. The reason the pet revive was taken away in the first place, was because rangers were letting their pets die in large scale events, and instead of reviving fallen people, players were accidentally reviving pets en mass. To counter this, make it so that only the pet owner can revive his own pet. This way we can revive our pet, (at the cost of not dishing out damage, because we are reviving the pet) and we’re not a burden to others who only want to revive players. To keep this from being exploitable, make it so that rangers get zero experience from reviving their own pet. This way rangers can’t purposefully kill their pet just to gain exp. This has been a terrible nerf to the ranger class since it was implemented. Pets are just as important to us as the other party members, heck, half of our skills are tied to pets being alive, so we need a way to revive them.

PART II

Pets and Jumping
Pets can’t jump. Therefore when the ranger jumps off a small ledge, the pet has to path around to catch back up. This is very annoying, especially in small skirmishes in WvW, or just trying to kill risen in Orr. I’ve seen pets float down huge cliffs in WvW, sometimes even to their deaths, so I would love to see them be able to “float” down 2 foot ledges. This also happens when we, the player, jump up a small ledge. The pet goes crazy, racing around beneath us trying to find a way up. I would like to see a way for pets to “float up” to us if we jump up small ledges.

Pet Leash
The leash on the pet needs to be smaller. Sometimes my pet runs next to me, and sometimes he is 20 feet ahead of me. This isn’t as huge of an issue anymore since pets no longer draw aggro to themselves, but it is an issue in WvW when I am suddenly attacked from behind, and my pet is very far ahead of me and needs to run all the way back to start helping me. When the pet is on passive, it needs to be next to me practically running me over. Currently with the pet on passive, I will be running, see an AOE circle, stop short of it, and my pet will blissfully keep running into the AOE until it dies and crawls back. In dungeons where AOE is rampant, my pet is doomed. The Mai Trin fractal where the whole floor is practically one giant AOE, the Canach instance where the pet would run into bombs and kill its master even on passive, the Molten Alliance dungeon where fiery tornadoes, ground pounding weights and large AOEs dotted the floor are all death sentences to the pet, all because it can’t stay near its owner. The leash needs to be smaller, or if the pet is on passive, it needs to be less than 2 feet away from its owner at all times.

Pets and F2
The F2 on pets is not immediate. It is placed in a queue until the pet gets around to initiating it. This is a problem. There have been too many times in WvW and PvE alike where I absolutely needed my wolf’s F2 to go off, and instead of it happening, the wolf just stood there while I died. Most F2 skills are buggy to say the least. Sometimes the skill will go off fairly quickly, and sometimes it gets cancelled and put on cooldown. The F2 needs help. Pressing F2 should cancel everything else in queue and happen immediately.

Pet cannot attack. Target too far.
Recently, our pets got smacked with a short attack leash. If I am standing at 900 or 1,200 range (I can’t remember what the distance is), I can send my pet in to attack an enemy. If I am standing at 1,500 range, my pet can no longer attack an enemy, even if my longbow can still hit said enemy. Please revert this change. It was not overpowered. If I can still hit my target, then my pet should be able to too.

Keep the pets Condi/Power independent of the gear that the ranger has.

If Pet Condi dmg or dmg is based on the Ranger’s Equipment, It could be hard to get any condi from the pet if the pet is a condi-deliverer and the ranger is Power-equipped.
The pet is a good “Extra” of whatever kind of dmg it deals. Only make it stronger by traiting it.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Shadowsong.4820:

Permastowing a pet really shouldn’t be the “solution” to clunky pet mechanics. The people who would prefer this over having the pet mechanics improved/reworked just shouldn’t play rangers, I guess.

That idea would actually be in lieu of a permastow. It would give Rangers a little more utility while not losing site of the concept of a Ranger.

Either way though, I don’t want this whole CDI to be able stowing the pets. There have been a lot of great ideas outside of this one that will help pets to be a more viable option. Perhaps just fixing some of the issues with the AI could be enough for people to feel better about the lack of permastow.

I played a ton of GW1 ranger, and I never had a pet out. It wasn’t what the class was to me. The class to me was preparations and forcing pressure or spike damage from range. (I used a R/El or R/Rt conjure/splinter weapon build that did great aoe cleave from range) I want to be able to play my Ranger in a way like that, without breaking the game for someone else.

To me the way to stow a pet could be as simple as a signet. Signet passive is a boost to stats based on equipped pet or just in general, pet is stowed. Signet Active: pet appears for 20-30 seconds or until stowed. For a ranger using it, the pet is more like a spirit or the sylvari hound elite…

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Pets are supposed to be something that we as rangers should care about. Unfortunately, right now all we do is click to charm the pet one time, and then we proceed to completely ignore the pet for the remainder of its life except to swap it out. It becomes less of a focus to a ranger than his gear. The fact that pets don’t even keep their names, and most rangers don’t even bother to name them, shows how little most of us care or think about our pets. The entire pet concept is so raw that they’re completely uninteresting. I want to CARE about my pet, the way I care about my real life pets, but once charmed, you can essentially ignore the pet forever.

Goal of Proposal
Create more of a bond between ranger and pet by making each pet more unique and diverse to each ranger. Allow rangers to customize their pets looks, skills, and traits so that we are PROUD of our pets. Make them something that rangers want to show off and care about. Right now there is 0 time invested in a pet once charmed, allowing rangers to invest time in their pets will make them care more about them.

Proposal Functionality
Give each pet family its own skill, stat, and trait tree. Allow the rangers to level up their pets and choose their skills, basic stat allocation, and traits. Each pet family would still have basic strengths and weaknesses, so traiting a bear to DPS might not be as effective as traiting a wolf to DPS. If at any point we are unhappy, we can choose to:
A) release the pet back into the wild and retame a new one. The new pet could start at the lowest level and require new leveling or just start out at max level and require traiting.
B) pay to retrait the pet just like we do to retrait ourselves.

Also allow rangers to customize the looks of their pets. Allow us to change their colors, fur patterns, tattoo designs, even give them pet equipment. Anything to allow us to customize them, it would really give the ranger flavor and make us somewhat envious to other classes.

Associated Risks
Would require lots of programming and there are still major flaws with the current pet AI.

I’m not sure I like those suggestions Prysin. I think both Shortbow and Longbow are reasonable weapons on their own right now. What they need is something to make them more interactive to play.

I’m also not opposed to the condition vs power breakdown the 2 weapons currently have.

Shortbow certainly needs more condition coverage, that’s the main thing holding back Ranger condi builds in general over the other condi classes. Giving them confusion and torment would go a long way in solving this problem. But it would be easier to just put confusion on quick shot and torment on crippling shot, don’t you think?

Longbow as a power weapon is also almost there. Honestly I’m not a fan of barrage. You probably know this because you’ve seen me make the same suggestion to remove it numerous times. The class as a whole cna’t stand still to use it. The pulsing nature gets in the way of Hunter’s Shot. It’s weak. The cripple is useless after we spent 2 seconds standing still. It isn’t good against groups because we’ll reflect more damage than we do. It just doesn’t make sense as a weapon skill.

Simply giving Longbow killshot actually rewards you for that time spent standing still because the opponent is going to get hurt. It also combos really well with a knockback and a stealth skill.

If we want to improve the AE of the class, I say look at traps. They’re in a crit line… make them do real damage.

Now that all said let me cover some of your individual points and I’ll end with my suggestion for longbow.

SB – Poison on Hit: This is a tough one to balance. Even with a low proc chance, it will stack very quickly at 2 shots a second. Before you know it we’re sitting at 3mins of poison on a target like engineers do.

SB – Hunter’s Shot: Does this still stealth like the longbow one? I’m not a fan of things hurting us. I don’t see how us shooting an arrow that misses would confuse us though. I think these types of attacks don’t work well in MMO’s.

LB – #1: Absolutely not. A min range is awful. It makes it FAR to easy to counter the class and the damage/AE you’re introducing is no where near the power a Ele has so I don’t understand why you’d do this?

LB – Repellent Shot: I dont know why you added the leap back to this in addition to the knockback? I’m fine with this change but I don’t understand the need. A blast finisher is nice though.

LB – Grueling Terrain, I’m not getting the value with this? I’m assuming you’re trying to introduce some kiting tools to account for the min range you added? The weakness is great, but it’s just a cripple which means nothing imo. It would need to immobilize when exploding for the first damage, but this + muddy + spike traited + elite could be a lot to handle?

LB – Freezing Rain: Sounds good but it’s a mirrow for the Ele’s skill almost exactly (which is fine since I just want kill shot) and I’m worried too much of this weapon is now focusing on CC/Condis for the weapon you originally wanted to be AOE power?

Now as for me… I think the weapon is close to where it needs to be. It needs some burst and the skills need to flow with one another. I’m not a fan of needing 3 out of 5 skills for a weapon to provide utility as that’s what weapon swap is for. Here’s what I would do…

Longbow
#1: 0-900 does the same damage as middle range of damage. 901 – max does same damage but has a +XX ferocity built into it.

#2: Same as now damage wise, but channel duration shaved by 1 second.

#3: Same as now. I don’t agree with you that we would use this at max range. It’s a defensive skill and one I use primarily when being attacked by melee or being approached. It would be nice if the skill stealthed without needing to hit and change it so if it does hit, it immobilized the target for 1 second. But /meh.

#4: Same as now. I love this skill. I know people complain about it like rangers are only ones knocing ppl out of range, but come on…. BANISH!!!!!

#5: Aimed Shot just like a Warrior’s kill shot. Uses the same range bonus as #1 and does a ton of damage after a brief channel time.

This way the whole weapon synergizes with itself. It can push people to max range and line up an aimed shot. It can stealth to aimed shot with 100% chance to crit if you take remorseless (no one will without signet of beastmaster changed). The weapon now has some built in combos, it can deal some burst now, it just works.

You can then turn barrage into a utility skill per my suggestion on page one and/or you can turn traps into power based burst damage options per my suggestion on page one to handle the obvious AE issues this class has.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Remorseless is weak for a Grandmaster trait, especially in PvE. Its refresh condition should be expanded to enable its use with weapon setups that do not include longbow.

Goal of Proposal
Make remorseless a worthwhile trait that is accessible to all weapon sets.

Proposal Functionality
Make remorseless refresh opening strike on application of any condition that hinders movement or skill use (cripple, chill, immobilize, knockback, etc.). Add an internal cooldown (5-10s).

Associated Risks
I don’t see any. It’s too situational for a grandmaster trait. This could be an opening strikes problem and not a problem with remorseless. Even with this change it might fit better as a minor grandmaster trait.

Prysin.8542:

Killsmith.8169:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Prysin.8542:

However if we do it like this instead;
Marksmanship: Power + Precision
Skirmishing; Condition Damage, Critical Damage
Wilderness Survival; Toughness, Vitality
Nature Magic; Healing Power, Boon Duration
Beastmastery; Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration.

This allows us to the the most possible damage, and be as tanky as possible at any given time. Yes this might ruin trappers as they will lose out on duration, however seeing as most trappers run Carrion + Rabid you get the much needed boost to power, precision, critical damage and condition damage to be a more “hybrid” DPS setup, while speccing into BM Bunker will allow you to go heavy condi with direct damage from pets. Spirits may or may not become a problem area though. Shouts will be way way stronger as you get the much needed healing power bonus for the shout regen.
Wilderness survival will be just that, the BEST survival line in game. Giving us proper “Survival” stats.

That’s gamebreaking good sir. No, we do not move around the primary stats (power, precision, toughness, vitality, class mechanic), those can overpower any traitline easily with more than one in them. No, we change around the secondary stats, like the following, which would fix it so the current builds are allowed to branch out instead of being forced into the same traitlines as they are now.

Marksmanship: Power, Crit Damage
Skirmishing: Precision, Condition Damage
Wilderness Survival: Toughness, Boon Duration
Nature Magic: Vitality, Healing Power
Beastmastery: Profession Specific Bonus, Condition Duration

The other benefit to Ryu’s setup is that your power ranger won’t lose condition duration, which helps with maintaining vulnerability stacks. Given the function of the minor traits in marksmanship, that’s important to keep in mind.

Yes it will, he put condi duration together with pets, just like me…

Yep, I misread it. Somebody proposed swapping condition duration and crit damage. That’s the one I’m in favor of. It wouldn’t be a good idea to put two primary stats on one trait line.

Ok – I might get a lot of negative feedback for this post but why the hell not.

Disclaimer – I don’t play ranger. I did have a ranger in GW1. Never made one here.

Why? Because of the problem I’m making this post about : pets.

The reason I never made a ranger in GW2 is because pets are mandatory – you don’t get to choose whether you want one or not – no. Part of your DPS and overall effectiveness is tied in with this AI critter that is very poorly optimized right now.

I feel that’s the main flaw with the ranger class in GW2 from the conceptual point of view. Sure – the class has balance issue, bugs and whatnot – but these are fixable.

The real issue is that the class forces a pet down your throat. That’s the reason I never made a ranger, that’s the reason a LOT of people I know in the game haven’t made one.

And yes – I realize that reworking the class’ core mechanic is a huge thing to undertake but I could really see the class doing better if people could OPT to not have pets.
Not everybody who wants to play a ranger wants to have critters running around after them 24/7.

You know – when you think of the ranger archetype the most prominent figure that comes to my head is Aragorn. Did he have a pet? No.
Why are we forced to have them?

Give rangers a choice – you want a pet – sure go for it.
You want no pet ? Sure – go for it.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Atherakhia.4086:

I’m not sure I like those suggestions Prysin. I think both Shortbow and Longbow are reasonable weapons on their own right now. What they need is something to make them more interactive to play.

I’m also not opposed to the condition vs power breakdown the 2 weapons currently have.

Shortbow certainly needs more condition coverage, that’s the main thing holding back Ranger condi builds in general over the other condi classes. Giving them confusion and torment would go a long way in solving this problem. But it would be easier to just put confusion on quick shot and torment on crippling shot, don’t you think?

<snip>

Here were my suggestions for Longbow and Shortbow back on page 1:

(note that the numbers below refer to the skill bar number)

Longbow – Reward Max Range and synergize with pet.
1 Damage should not scale with range, but should apply vulnerability at 1000+ range
2 Cripple target and swiftness for pet
3 Immobilize target and Might for pet
5 Knockdown at 1000+, 1 second stun at 600-999, 2 second stun at 0-599. Regen for pet

Shortbow – Condition Damage
3 should apply Burning
4 should apply Torment
5 should become the leapback from old #3 and apply confusion

And now for something different.

Rangers absorb the power of their stowed pets and TRANSFORM into an animal while the pet is stowed. We would lose all weapon skills which would be replaced by the animal skills say “aspect of the avian” for any stowed bird, would give a certain set of attacks. This would give us our dungeon fix as all of our power would be in our hands, or talons, and wouldn’t crush pet usage as in order to have range at all we’d need our bows, so out of animal form we come.

Shape shifting mechanic already exists in game code… See Norn.

Killsmith.8169:

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Remorseless is weak for a Grandmaster trait, especially in PvE. Its refresh condition should be expanded to enable its use with weapon setups that do not include longbow.

Goal of Proposal
Make remorseless a worthwhile trait that is accessible to all weapon sets.

Proposal Functionality
Make remorseless refresh opening strike on application of any condition that hinders movement or skill use (cripple, chill, immobilize, knockback, etc.). Add an internal cooldown (5-10s).

Associated Risks
I don’t see any. It’s too situational for a grandmaster trait. This could be an opening strikes problem and not a problem with remorseless. Even with this change it might fit better as a minor grandmaster trait.

I agree that Remorseless is terrible. But simply increasing the chance it has to proc isn’t going to really solve anything because the number of skills that will make any real use of the trait is 1: maul.

Until the class has real burst the trait (along with Moment of Clarity) really aren’t going to live up to their placement in the tree. But that said, if this class were given some real ways to deal burst damage I’m worried allowing remorseless to proc this often would be overpowered.

Honestly speaking… openning strike and remorseless overall are just terrible traits and both should probably be changed

I need to ask the devs: What is the maximum we can expect from this? Will any broader changes eligible to happen or should we expect only tweaks to the current framework??

I feel as if the answer to this might clear up a lot of clutter and steer this discussion into something the devs can use.

Harper.4173:

Ok – I might get a lot of negative feedback for this post but why the hell not.

Disclaimer – I don’t play ranger. I did have a ranger in GW1. Never made one here.

Why? Because of the problem I’m making this post about : pets.

The reason I never made a ranger in GW2 is because pets are mandatory – you don’t get to choose whether you want one or not – no. Part of your DPS and overall effectiveness is tied in with this AI critter that is very poorly optimized right now.

I feel that’s the main flaw with the ranger class in GW2 from the conceptual point of view. Sure – the class has balance issue, bugs and whatnot – but these are fixable.

The real issue is that the class forces a pet down your throat. That’s the reason I never made a ranger, that’s the reason a LOT of people I know in the game haven’t made one.

And yes – I realize that reworking the class’ core mechanic is a huge thing to undertake but I could really see the class doing better if people could OPT to not have pets.
Not everybody who wants to play a ranger wants to have critters running around after them 24/7.

You know – when you think of the ranger archetype the most prominent figure that comes to my head is Aragorn. Did he have a pet? No.
Why are we forced to have them?

Give rangers a choice – you want a pet – sure go for it.
You want no pet ? Sure – go for it.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Agree with everything except the most prominent ranger archetype. There is no such thing. Rangers are more diverse than that. But I too would want my ranger to be like Aragorn. Tracking,hunting,skirmishing. Not a mandatory pet.

Badly formatted could’t get right ignore delete.

I dont think the aspects need to be party buffs. We already give buffs in the form of certain traits, spirits, and skills.

If you made aspects aoe then it would need to be balanced for use by multiple people, which could imped any real good buffs (like getting the 20-30% of dmg rangers dont have due to pets back.)

Also it would run a good chance of people just wanting rangers around as a group buff slave (kinda like how mesmers are used for portals only in wvvw).

I do like the idea of once you are in an aspect your f2 changes ( kind of like how the warriors f1 changes depend on which weapon you havve equipped)

Aspect of the cat could give you a 4 secs of stealth on 40s cd etc..

that would fit in nicely with https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/12#post3689299

@Ather
My intent is to give the longbow stronger CC + Power.
You may notice that i introduced a much higher coefficient to “Freezing Rain”. Which means both the raw DPS and the CC would be stronger then the old barrage version.

My “tooltip description” also leaves it to the devs immagination as whether or not they want a “channeling time” or not.
The minimum range is there to allow for this weapon to have permanent 1500 range with much stronger AOE.
Repellent shot works in two ways to ensure “safety”. Knockback does not work on enemies with stability, so in the case of enemies wearing stability, you jump back while evading. Getting you out of “minimum range requirement” Thus allowing you to fire off Grueling Terrain for CC and weakness (no more dodgerolls) and then continue with Rapid Fire. You may also notice that i left Rapid Fire untouched. Preferably it should get a big boost to its raw output (from 0.38/shot up to 0.8 to make it a proper burst able to be frighteningly deadly at close range where it is hard to sidestep/evade).

By defining the longbow as a hard hitting long range weapon, we are free to “redefine” the SB as a close range mobile weapon.

Also, rangers excel at CC, and i think we should improve on that further.
Some professions are good at melee cleave CC, like warrior and guard. Others have more or less effective AOE CC, yet nothing touches rangers with the ability to apply AOE hard CC en-masse. However our AOE soft CC does not weigh up for the lack of DPS on these skills.

Also, adding a minimum range to longbow means you MUST consider the risk of melee. It would utterly destroy builds such as Bearbow, and force rangers to bring a proper close quarter melee and or ranged weapon, not just relying on a single weapon to carry them, then die and respawn just so you can repeat the process.

Also, as of today, LB at range 0-500 isn’t great. Thanks to the AA DPS buff it is viable, but far from a good choice.

Atherakhia.4086:

Killsmith.8169:

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Remorseless is weak for a Grandmaster trait, especially in PvE. Its refresh condition should be expanded to enable its use with weapon setups that do not include longbow.

Goal of Proposal
Make remorseless a worthwhile trait that is accessible to all weapon sets.

Proposal Functionality
Make remorseless refresh opening strike on application of any condition that hinders movement or skill use (cripple, chill, immobilize, knockback, etc.). Add an internal cooldown (5-10s).

Associated Risks
I don’t see any. It’s too situational for a grandmaster trait. This could be an opening strikes problem and not a problem with remorseless. Even with this change it might fit better as a minor grandmaster trait.

I agree that Remorseless is terrible. But simply increasing the chance it has to proc isn’t going to really solve anything because the number of skills that will make any real use of the trait is 1: maul.

Until the class has real burst the trait (along with Moment of Clarity) really aren’t going to live up to their placement in the tree. But that said, if this class were given some real ways to deal burst damage I’m worried allowing remorseless to proc this often would be overpowered.

Honestly speaking… openning strike and remorseless overall are just terrible traits and both should probably be changed

Path of scars is strong enough to take advantage of it as well. I don’t think it will ever become overpowered because of the addition of an internal cooldown and the cap on vulnerability stacks. I’m trying to increase the opportunities it has to proc, which are currently quite limited. The frequency is controllable via ICD.

It probably shouldn’t take a grandmaster trait to get opening strikes to trigger more than once every fight though. I’d merge opening/alpha and then move remorseless to the grandmaster minor. Neither of the grandmaster traits in marksmanship have any business being grandmaster traits, honestly.

Also, i think if we go for this “Aspect” thing, we should clarify something;
Aspects should give US (the ranger only) Bonuses to enhance existing skills, while the Pet should be made into a reliable, efficient and versatile group utility tool. Meaning Pet Boons need to be buffed, activation times must be reduced and or AoE must be increased to allow for fast paced dynamic play. Pets should apply more then a single boon, and granted the CD’s of most pet skills, they are horribly underpowered compared to their effect and/or compared to similar skills on other professions utility/weapon skill-sets