Guild Wars 2

Cufufalating.8479:

So you want to balance the class what was voted (without a shadow of a doubt) the class that needs the most help, but you dont want to buff us to be on par with others because of power creep?

wat

It takes a combination of both.

Also, the Ranger was voted as the first CDI profession because most players agree that the core design of the Ranger or its place in the current meta of all gametypes is lacking from player’s intentions of “fun.”

Even if damage numbers were completely removed from the equation, I have the strongest feeling Ranger still would have been selected as the profession in most need of improvement.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

So resuming, the other classes are a bit overpowered and will be tuned down in the future and rangers are kinda in the right spot, and for that reason rangers damage won’t be tuned up.
We’ll only try to fix some issues like pet mechanic and some trait disparities, but until the other classes don’t get tuned down the rangers will be at the bottom of the “damage creep”.
Is that correct or I am misinterpreting your post?

Black Box.9312:

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

To be honest, I think the opposite is more constructive. When you have frequent, small balancing updates, you can adjust previous changes accordingly as you add new changes, which leads to a much steadier and more stable climb toward desired balance. Having infrequent, large balance patches gives the illusion of laziness (even though I know that not to be necessarily true; not everyone does), and can dramatically impact gameplay because of how many new elements are introduced simultaneously.

I’d agree with this. It’d be more entertaining to login and see changes, even if small ones. Not to mention, it’s impossible to implement large changes into the game and predict exactly how the playerbase is going to run away with them and use them in ridiculously broken builds. So might as well patch more often, and perhaps in smaller tweaks rather than waiting two months…to do slightly larger tweaks.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give rangers a way to remove boons from foes.

Goal of Proposal
One of the defining ways the GW1 ranger played was the ‘interupt’ functionality. Through interrupting they denied casters and melee skill execution. Now I am somewhat glad that interruption seems to be largely gone, and that without any skill-bars on opponents it is a lot harder to interrupt. BUT.

GW2 offers a way to still ‘deny’ any class the option of at least part of their effectiveness. Mainly by the removal of boons.

Proposal Functionality
Weapon hits or critical hits could remove one ‘tick’ or a whole stack of boons from the foes hit. This could be integrated in the skill or integrated in the trait system.

Barrage: “Removes one stack of a random boon from foes hit by this attack”

Associated Risks
Not to sure there are any. I mean, rangers shared ‘interupts’ with the Mesmer in GW1 why shouldn’t the ranger in GW2 share a bit of ‘boon manipulation’ with the Necro.

Added Benefit
This could actually make for interesting strategies in WvW, with more boon removal it pays off less to ‘boon up’ before fights. Making boon spreading a more viable way to go about your fighting, or if you boon up, it might be wiser to ‘spread out’.

Hmm I am not sure how this would pan out, especially since I am fairly unfamiliar with the Necro WvW-meta. But this could be interesting to broaden the capabilities of the ranger.

Azukas.1426:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Yes, like I said about the sustained vs burst, it’s not necessarily fully functional in the game. This is one of those things that we would have to balance with bringing other classes down a bit as far as damage output. Burst damage needs to have risk involved, and we know that right now many classes don’t have that associated risk.

Well I can say that I speak for everyone here and must say I hope you are taking into account Condi Burst in these talks

As for crit burst classes not having enough risk associated with them….which classes are we talking about here?

Well at least warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer and ele

Arghore.8340:

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give rangers a way to remove boons from foes.

Goal of Proposal
One of the defining ways the GW1 ranger played was the ‘interupt’ functionality. Through interrupting they denied casters and melee skill execution. Now I am somewhat glad that interruption seems to be largely gone, and that without any skill-bars on opponents it is a lot harder to interrupt. BUT.

GW2 offers a way to still ‘deny’ any class the option of at least part of their effectiveness. Mainly by the removal of boons.

Proposal Functionality
Weapon hits or critical hits could remove one ‘tick’ or a whole stack of boons from the foes hit. This could be integrated in the skill or integrated in the trait system.

Barrage: “Removes one stack of a random boon from foes hit by this attack”

Associated Risks
Not to sure there are any. I mean, rangers shared ‘interupts’ with the Mesmer in GW1 why shouldn’t the ranger in GW2 share a bit of ‘boon manipulation’ with the Necro.

Added Benefit
This could actually make for interesting strategies in WvW, with more boon removal it pays off less to ‘boon up’ before fights. Making boon spreading a more viable way to go about your fighting, or if you boon up, it might be wiser to ‘spread out’.

Hmm I am not sure how this would pan out, especially since I am fairly unfamiliar with the Necro WvW-meta. But this could be interesting to broaden the capabilities of the ranger.

Frost trap might also be a good place to put some boon striping as it isn’t a condition damage trap and other than the elementalist bugg-out about chill it isn’t all that great. May have to do a some trap or weapon skill proposal with that in mind.

I think barrage was designed with range cap pressure in mind and to make it a bit easier for a melee pet to engage the target. Not sure what else they had in mind for it except maybe getting tags in AoE situations.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

This is true, we don’t want another Healing Signet catastrophe on our hands. The buff to that was so strong, that Warriors HAVE to be nerfed to offset that. Considering how hard Rangers have been hit by nerfs since release, I for one would not want to suddenly get blindsided by a ton of nerfs after one amazing buff. It wouldn’t be worth it because morale would be hit harder than it is right now.

Like, we are going to have a massive problem here Allie. If you are directly linking what changes should be made to the Ranger to a different vision of PvE than what we have now (Damage is king, Stack, Melee Weapon>Ranged) and instead to some theoretical vision of the future that Devs have of PvE balance, we need to be more informed of what that vision entails.
Is it going to be Trinity? Removing Defiance but weakening conditions? DPS consistent across all weapon types? Whichever it is, I can give suggestions for, but tbh this CDI is near useless if we are not trying to fix the problems Rangers have now in PvE – as that is what the 20 pages of suggestions people have put some serious effort into are all relating too.

I was thinking about some change to longbow and after read a lot of post of this topic a get araise 1 question ¿What is the longbow pourpose in the ranger meta? obviously is not conditon damage or burst damage, but neather it feels to sustained damage o cc output. Also is a punishing weapon, all of dungeons are really close instance where you are engageing mobs in really close combat so the longbow just feel off in those places, same with PvP maps of point-control. Even in wvw the slow shooting arrows make you feels like your longbow are contributing to nothing at least you use barrage. The auto attack dimishing damage has not sence in a slow range weapon were everybody and everything can close the gaps from their position to yours in seconds. So i dont understan what is the role of longbow and the desing beside it. Any dev clarification will be sooo good welcome, so people dont loss time trowing ideas that maybe you are not looking for because some concept desing that us (the players comunity) are unaware off

Sorry for my english, is not my main lenguage.

Bran.7425:

Arghore.8340:

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give rangers a way to remove boons from foes.

Goal of Proposal
One of the defining ways the GW1 ranger played was the ‘interupt’ functionality. Through interrupting they denied casters and melee skill execution. Now I am somewhat glad that interruption seems to be largely gone, and that without any skill-bars on opponents it is a lot harder to interrupt. BUT.

GW2 offers a way to still ‘deny’ any class the option of at least part of their effectiveness. Mainly by the removal of boons.

Proposal Functionality
Weapon hits or critical hits could remove one ‘tick’ or a whole stack of boons from the foes hit. This could be integrated in the skill or integrated in the trait system.

Barrage: “Removes one stack of a random boon from foes hit by this attack”

Associated Risks
Not to sure there are any. I mean, rangers shared ‘interupts’ with the Mesmer in GW1 why shouldn’t the ranger in GW2 share a bit of ‘boon manipulation’ with the Necro.

Added Benefit
This could actually make for interesting strategies in WvW, with more boon removal it pays off less to ‘boon up’ before fights. Making boon spreading a more viable way to go about your fighting, or if you boon up, it might be wiser to ‘spread out’.

Hmm I am not sure how this would pan out, especially since I am fairly unfamiliar with the Necro WvW-meta. But this could be interesting to broaden the capabilities of the ranger.

Frost trap might also be a good place to put some boon striping as it isn’t a condition damage trap and other than the elementalist bugg-out about chill it isn’t all that great. May have to do a some trap or weapon skill proposal with that in mind.

I think barrage was designed with range cap pressure in mind and to make it a bit easier for a melee pet to engage the target. Not sure what else they had in mind for it except maybe getting tags in AoE situations.

How about we just get a trait that strips a boon on cripple????

:D

Specific Game Mode
PvE
Proposal Overview
Fortifying Bond should work both ways
Goal of Proposal
To make pets somewhat more important on teamplay
Proposal Functionality
Bearbows… People hate them. Hell, even I hate them. They send their bear in the fight and do moderate damage, not helping team at all. But this can change. Why dont we make the pet into a boon hub?

If fortifying bond works bot ways, a melee pet could get boons for his master. Ranger could do better damage from wherever she is and maybe it would even be useful in wvw!
Associated Risks
I am sure we can exploit this trait more than a few ways, but again we do that to anything. Also, with this, we are giving bearbows some good excuse which might be a bad idea.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

This is really flawed. Sustained dps should have a higher average than burst dps. Otherwise you won’t be able to counter the extra dodges over that period of time, their regeneration, aegis, protection, etc. They’ll probably get to use their heal twice if they decide to stick around. There’s also a larger probability that reinforcements will come.

There’s no point in waiting for the long term payout if it isn’t any better than the short term payout.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

I’d like you to consider that when a profession is broadly held to be dead last in general effectiveness making improvements isn’t ‘power creep’…
It’s more like an apology, really .

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

There’s evidence to suggest about 90% of your users are willing to take that chance .

jewishjoyride.4693:

Bran.7425:

Arghore.8340:

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give rangers a way to remove boons from foes.

Goal of Proposal
One of the defining ways the GW1 ranger played was the ‘interupt’ functionality. Through interrupting they denied casters and melee skill execution. Now I am somewhat glad that interruption seems to be largely gone, and that without any skill-bars on opponents it is a lot harder to interrupt. BUT.

GW2 offers a way to still ‘deny’ any class the option of at least part of their effectiveness. Mainly by the removal of boons.

Proposal Functionality
Weapon hits or critical hits could remove one ‘tick’ or a whole stack of boons from the foes hit. This could be integrated in the skill or integrated in the trait system.

Barrage: “Removes one stack of a random boon from foes hit by this attack”

Associated Risks
Not to sure there are any. I mean, rangers shared ‘interupts’ with the Mesmer in GW1 why shouldn’t the ranger in GW2 share a bit of ‘boon manipulation’ with the Necro.

Added Benefit
This could actually make for interesting strategies in WvW, with more boon removal it pays off less to ‘boon up’ before fights. Making boon spreading a more viable way to go about your fighting, or if you boon up, it might be wiser to ‘spread out’.

Hmm I am not sure how this would pan out, especially since I am fairly unfamiliar with the Necro WvW-meta. But this could be interesting to broaden the capabilities of the ranger.

Frost trap might also be a good place to put some boon striping as it isn’t a condition damage trap and other than the elementalist bugg-out about chill it isn’t all that great. May have to do a some trap or weapon skill proposal with that in mind.

I think barrage was designed with range cap pressure in mind and to make it a bit easier for a melee pet to engage the target. Not sure what else they had in mind for it except maybe getting tags in AoE situations.

How about we just get a trait that strips a boon on cripple????

:D

Where would it be place? There are numerous lack luster traits.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

The discussion started as how to help make the ranger more desirable, because it’s perceived as the weakest class. That implies a discussion of ranger buffs. But it seems like we’re getting a bit derailed here, talking about how the preference is not to buff rangers, but bring everyone else in line.

Do we instead want to direct conversation towards just interesting directions to take rangers? We can do that too, and it may be a more productive direction if we’ll meet only resistance suggesting buffs.

jewishjoyride.4693:

How about we just get a trait that strips a boon on cripple????

:D

This suggestion is OP.

Angela Ranna.5638:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

The discussion started as how to help make the ranger more desirable, because it’s perceived as the weakest class. That implies a discussion of ranger buffs. But it seems like we’re getting a bit derailed here, talking about how the preference is not to buff rangers, but bring everyone else in line.

Do we instead want to direct conversation towards just interesting directions to take rangers? We can do that too, and it may be a more productive direction if we’ll meet only resistance suggesting buffs.

Also I think at this point in the thread we’ve hashed out the fixes that need the most attention plenty of times, so perhaps we should look to close the discussion or take it in a new direction.

sustained damage is completely irrelevelant in PvE… this can’t be changed unless the core aspect of the dungs/fracs get completely re-worked which they won’t.

and there is NO such thing as sustained DPS in PvP…. WvW zerg, you are doing laughable damage to the opposing zerg. just 1 water field will probably heal any terribly bad sustained DPS a ranger does from his 1500 range….meanwhile eles drop 10k critting meteors + nados.. I see no problems there ….

WvW roaming – sustained DPS works to an extent (if you facing a clueless glass paper class). Otherwise, majority of the guards/warriors/eles/everyone can just heal majority of the rangers bad dps… same thing applies in sPvP…sustained DPS means very little when a lot of other professions can pump serious damage on short cooldowns, and even then, they can keep up pressure with their autoattacks + conditions…

So realisitcally speaking… everyone has sustained damage lol. You must think those burst skills are on like a 60 sec cooldown and can only be in 1 or 2 weaponsets Allie, because they are in fact, not…. there are multiple burst skills for multiple weaponsets for basically every profession except ranger

all you have given ranger is one (maul + swope lol) which is so easily telegraphed and dodged…

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

for what its worth:
skills/traits based power creep is fairly limited so far. youve shown youre willing to nerf things when they get out of hand. albeit slowly. and youre planning to bring crit damage down a bit.

its the wvw siege power creep yall need to worry about next. in my opinion. its unchecked. rams are about 50% stronger, while gates remain the same. catas are 50% stronger, walls are the same. bleah, kinda off topic.

i have confidence in your abilities to recognize power and balance, but we need more than 2 balance patches a year until things are pretty good.

I don’t think she’s saying that any change to damage is power creep. However, bringing the ranger’s overall damage output up would be. It’s a matter of adapting how and when they do damage to match outside factors, (general mechanics, enemies, other professions). Those outside factors themselves may need to be updated if the ranger’s problems are determined to be rooted in external causes.

ddoi.9264:

Not to mention in PvE burst damage is rewarded; bosses and difficult mobs have condition purging skills(alpha, CoE stationary golem boss), vulnerability phases(destroyer boss in CoE p3, dredge suit/ice elemental boss in fractals) where you are required to burst. The zerk meta already proves killing enemies faster are far better than whittling them down over time with higher survivability- and guess what the two most shunned classes in PvE; necros and rangers, are good at.

Don’t forget the newly added Wurm boss in Bloodtide Coast. Has timed vulnerability stages. Less than 10 seconds to kill the head. Rangers and sustained damage? Ain’t nobody got time fo dat.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

I would note the defensive concept I posted at the link below would assist in combating power creep in PvP contexts possibly limiting any damage nerfs one might consider for other classes. Provided the ability to share the bubble was implemented. The bubble could cause a button masher vs skilled players burst to be completely lost. Skilled players pop them.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/page/16#post3692039

I would encourage my fellow rangers to focus on defense/survivability outside the bunker lines. We are clearly being told we don’t want to raise damage. They clearly recognize we have an issue and the flip side of damage is survivability to deal your sustain by limiting mitigating your opponents damage. We are clearly being told MAJOR changes to pets are too intensive/complex and to take our pet based aspect ideas to another thread.

*Think of our damage capacity and what level of additional defense for us and our pet would make That damage level viable and improve pets. *

I have never seen any gaming company give such clear feedback to help us as players to brainstorm what might be acceptable improvements. Closest I’ve seen is the old DAOC class leads. Unparalleled opportunity, don’t miss it on a single minded I need BIG NUMBERZ to counter BIG NUMBERZ dynamic. I get it but we aren’t getting that. How do we counter the BIG NUMBERZ of our opponents and share that ability around us to become group friendly.

We don’t get to choose their balance image we must work within it

Specific Game Mode
PvP
Proposal Overview
Changing Empathic Bonds to be more active
Goal of Proposal
Give the player access to more active condition removal.
Proposal Functionality
Change Empathic Bonds so the pet takes away 2-3 conditions when called back (hitting F3) on a 10 sec cd. Also, as a quality of life change, it would be awesome to be able to see how many seconds we left on trait cooldowns.
Associated Risks
Rangers must learn to where the F3 key is. Jokes aside, this would mean the player must look at his conditions to decide the best time to use the condi-cleanse, but forgetting to send the pet back out to fight (F1) may get the ranger into sticky situations… At the very least, it should be more engaging then how the Empathic Bonds currently works.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

Is the Balance team considering any overall increase in damage? I ask because I would like to know if the team thinks Ranger is doing enough damage.

Personally, I don’t think so. Ranger is far behind every class in terms of damage. I’m not comparing DPS on a weapon to weapon basis, I’m talking about all the optimized builds in the meta and there I qualitatively conclude that Ranger does not deal enough damage.

I would say the ranger has very good durability which translate to good survivability. But this meta is all about what a class can deliver in terms of up-front damage. Playing the attrition game is more inherently risky because you cannot capitalize of the element of surprise as much, and the longer the battle exists, the more prone to mistakes you make. I don’t see how it’s fair that Ranger is designed to use attrition, which punishes mistakes disproportionately.

Allie Murdock.8152:

We’re seeing that power creep is a big problem in the game right now, so bringing the Ranger up to snuff would only exacerbate that. When we do balance patches, we like to look at every class and where they are at so we can balance appropriately throughout.

Of course, it can be hard to account for certain things when doing these patches, which is why we’re trying to do the patches less frequently so we can properly gauge what needs to be done (that’s not to say that we won’t hotfix any major issues that arise).

I’m sorry but this pretty much accounts for why those who main rangers feel neglected. Because other classes are TOO STRONG we don’t get buffed? And yet you’re not nerfing those other classes to our level? We are a medium armor class with the game’s least amount of condition removal and lowest or near the bottom in burst. There is no reason for a heavy armor class to out burst a medium, since melee does more than ranged because of risk of damage. When we as a medium armor class melee, we should out pace warriors and guardians because we are risking more.

The Ranger and his additional pet

Pets need to assist their master by performing desired functions at a level of effectiveness that recognized the limits of the current AI. An AI will never be as good as a normal player. Therefore its very risky to entrust the pet with core mechanics such as beeing a huge part of the overall damage output.

The Ranger should be the principle damage-dealer as a base-line (having the damage potential previously expected of their companions restored to them). This keeps damage potential properly linked to gear selection and provides better parity with other classes.

The pet’s main purpose would be providing utility (healing, cleansing, CC, etc.). Traits can further develop the companion’s role or convert them into a second, lesser DPS threat, but the Ranger is never forced to rely on AI for damage.

Pet skills need to be sufficiently strong to offset their limitations. For example, players seek to position themselves to affect multiple targets. Pet can’t do this, so their skills might hit a 360 degree arc and/or have a greater radius to make up for the weakness in placement.

According to these proposals, the pet will be still usefull and hasn’t to be replaced, since all the aspects the pet provides are additions, which are nice to have but not mandatory in order to be competitive.

Not to nitpick, but I can no longer restrain myself. Damage Output is two words.

The more responses I read from Anet, the more I realize how little they must play this classes compared to people who have put endless hours into ranger… I’m so close to re-rolling and starting a new main if this “keep rangers as a sustained DPS” nonsense is actually going to happen.

I am amazed how this iteration of the ranger got through QA. Its main characteristic, ie the pet, is barely working. How can someone make a pet based class when the pets themselves are absolutely worthless is beyond me.

If rangers can’t get any damage increase, then we need to get our 50% endurance regeneration (Natural Vigor) back!!!
This was a major step in the wrong direction when this was nerfed to 25%. If rangers can’t have reliable condition removal, then we need to at least be able to avoid getting hit with conditions in the first place.

Also Allie, have you seen any pet AI improvements mentioned that you think would be a good idea? Anything to keep this thread going in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

SkiTz.4590:

The more responses I read from Anet, the more I realize how little they must play this classes compared to people who have put endless hours into ranger… I’m so close to re-rolling and starting a new main if this “keep rangers as a sustained DPS” nonsense is actually going to happen.

Exactly!

It’s all about upfront damage and using the element of surprise. No one is masterful enough to flawlessly execute fights for prolonged time to use attrition as an advantage in combat.

Bryzy.2719:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

All things considered, many of us, the players, would dearly love to be able to play a viable burst build, or have some aspect of decent physical DPS. To limit the Ranger class to sustained damage is to contradict your own paradigm-shifting philosophy of “any profession can fulfill any role”. Furthermore, it’s actively mitigating our enjoyment of the profession. Essentially, there are those of us who only ever want to play Ranger, and, forgive the childish phrasing, but it is frankly unfair to deny us the potential enjoyment we can get out of this profession.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people talk about “classes fulfilling any role” like they expect any class to be able to do everything. As far as I’m aware, they only said each class can do 3 roles.
Control, support, damage.
When it comes to the damage, they never said every class will have high burst, just that they will be able to do damage in a certain way. And having lots of sustain damage vs burst is still consider damage

“we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage.”

Now with PvE, it’s up for debate whether or not is effective there, But that’s more of a problem with the design of the content then it is with the mechanics of a class

Bran.7425:

Not to nitpick, but I can no longer restrain myself. Damage Output is two words.

There you go, thanks for the hint.

WatchTheShow.7203:

. They used to be able to revive dead players, and now they can only revive downed players. I would like to see this reverted. Also, rangers used to be able to revive dead pets, but now dead pets can only be swapped out.

I know. I was a ranger in BWE2 & 3 and since early access, I got to see some of those “nerfs” but know a few of them were QOL patches since some people saw dead pets and would revive only for the pets to fall over again shortly.

Also people using S&R for things not potentially intended for when designed so . . .

But allowing a ranger to “treat” their own pet goes back to GW1’s “Comfort Animal” res effect. (By the way, that was a great pulling tool sometimes :P )

SkiTz.4590:

The more responses I read from Anet, the more I realize how little they must play this classes compared to people who have put endless hours into ranger… I’m so close to re-rolling and starting a new main if this “keep rangers as a sustained DPS” nonsense is actually going to happen.

I have spent far too much work on my ranger to simply re-roll another class. I hope they hear what we have to say.
Especially this “We don’t want the ranger to deal too much damage” sounds odd to me since the ranger is the class with the smallest damage output.

Sorry need to make this post for slight stress relief:

• Day 1, Make Ranger main

• Slowly becomes apparent how poor DPS/Support is in PvE

• Switch mains to remain sane.

• Watch King of PvE Warriors get buffed patch after patch, much to incredulity of friends/spouse (Warrior need these buffs because of Spvp!)

• Watch Rangers actually get nerfed – try to forget about it

• See CDI about Rangers. Glimmer of Hope traitorously forms

• Devs now worried that all Warrior Meta bursts through PvE too fast, thus reluctant to buff Rangers due to power creep.

• Hope Dies. All is Vain.

Game Mode

PVX

Overview

Since the Ranger is said to be dominant in long range combat and largely defined by the pet, I think that the rifle should be included as a weapon that works with the pet more than other weapons. Think of a hunter and his/her dog. Since I’m sure there have been plenty of mentions of the pet controls needing work, I’ll refrain from going there and stay on topic with the rifle skills and its place in the game.

Goal

I’ve been playing a Ranger since GW1, and while I was glad to see the improvements made to the pet since then, I feel there is vast untapped potential with the mechanic. The rifle fits to the look and style of the Ranger, and the way I picture it, it fits the most as a weapon that works the pet into its attacks more directly, and as the dominant long range combatant, it fits in to the Ranger play style. Also, the weapon would function even without the pet, in case it falls in combat, though having the pet maximizes the weapons functionality.

Proposal Functionality

The rifle would have a default of 1200 range, same as the longbow. I don’t have exact skill names, cooldowns, or exact logistics, but I have a general proposition of how it would work.

1. Just a basic rifle shot that shares the Warrior Bleeding Shot animation (maybe slower), but perhaps has a damage and crit chance increase while standing still, similar to how the longbow and Mesmer greatsword scale with distance, but instead with motion, since this weapon relies on the pet having aggro.

2. Like the Warrior rifle, I think a crippling shot should be included, but it would grant swiftness to the pet, perhaps also granting the pet might, or an opening strike, since swiftness wouldn’t do much good to Rangers that tame ranged pets. It would need to differ from Hunter’s Shot, but I think having something similar is important for this weapon’s style of combat.

3. Since the rifle would focus on not only keeping the enemy at a distance, but keeping as still as possible, I think it should have an ability that gets the Ranger out of harms way, so a bit of a combination of Lightning Reflexes and the Warrior’s Rifle Butt. Instead of doing knockback, the Ranger would strike the enemy, possibly with a kick, then do a quick roll backwards, possibly even dazing the enemy to buy a second or two. Maybe this would restore some endurance, but that might be getting too close to Lightning Reflexes

4. To my knowledge, there isn’t a lot done with pulling mechanics aside from the Theif’s Scorpion Wire and Necro’s Spectral Grasp, I think it could be fitting with a rifle. It could act like a harpoon that reels the enemy in. This skill would have a 2 skill chain, with the second skill being after the enemy is pulled, the Ranger either knocks the enemy to the pet, giving it aggro, or the Ranger would switch places with the pet, also giving it aggro, though that would be harder to explain.

5. This would share the Warrior Kill Shot animation, because I think it’s a good animation that needs to be used more, and this skill would be similar to Volley, but require the Ranger to stay still. The Ranger would fire slower, consecutive shots (3 or 4) that grant might to the pet with each hit, and heal the pet with each hit, possibly grant the pet fury on the final hit.

As far as traits are concerned, I think one that has the 1 skill grant either poison, chill, or confusion on crits would be good, and fitting. Think of it as a tranquilizer that has random effects, so the condition dealt would be random. Also, a range increase to 1500, like the longbow, would not be out of place, possibly incorporated in the same trait as the longbow.

Associated Risks

Obviously, with adding a new weapon there’s risk of balancing issues. The weapon used this way would introduce some newer, different methods of combat that might be clunky at first. The 4 skill would take some refining, but with some work, could be implemented well.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Give rangers a ‘druidic/beast master staff’

Goal of Proposal
Increase the ranger’s a Nature magic and Beastmaster Theme.

Proposal Functionality
The ranger staff (in my opinion) should be a mix between druidic plant manipulating skills, and beastmaster’y animal ‘calling’ skills. And as such could increase the nature magic and beastmaster theme’s of the ranger, while not directly effecting all of the rangers others functions. If possible the staff should have some what ‘skirmish’ elements in it, but it’s main function would be to enable pet play, trapping, area manipulation and spirits as well as ‘support’. I could have skills like, but not exclusively as proposed:

1. Thorn wave: send forth a cone of thorns (‘skirmish’ due to cone nature)
2. Flock of birds: send out a flock of birds attacking upto 5 foes in target area. Blast finisher on caster location.
3. Root Growth: Rampantly grows root in target area, foe knockdown on wave tick, ally stability on wave tick.
4. Vine Wall: Summons a destructible wall of vines (blocks all ranged attacks by absorbing damage), gives cripple and bleed on passing through it.
5. Beastly Roar: call upon nature to get aid from a pet creature native to the area you call upon it, it will attack target it’s called upon.

Associated Risks
To make room for this weapon, another weapon may well have to make place for it. From my own experience I would say that perhaps the knife is a good candidate. But removing anything from the game might upset those that enjoy it’s functionality. So maybe just adding it might be the best. In which case this suggestion adds the risk of ‘breaking’ the skill amount limit set for the various professions.

Adding a staff to the ranger may well cause an ‘we want another weapon too’ from all other professions.

additional argumentation
The setup of this weapon is fairly defensive and AE oriented, which may ‘break’ the designers wish for ‘skirmish’ on all aspect of the Ranger. Something that I personally do not agree with, seeing the ranger has many more roles to fulfil and Nature loving players to appeal than the ‘skirmish’ fighting crew.

A staff with ‘AE’ and a somewhat ‘Defensive’ skillset might actually be ‘anti skirmish’, but giving a Ranger some Area Control, with the staff and muddy terrain, traps. Could be very useful to combat zerg WvW, the defensive nature could also help somewhat for protecting spirits. Or could help give the ranger a more ‘defensive stance’ while fighting with their pets.

disclaimer
I am sorry if this suggestion was already put forth (over 18 pages now so I hope you will forgive me for not having read them all). Also sorry to those that loath the ‘druid’ / ‘beastmaster’ play style on their beloved ranger. But I think the ranger should have at least one weapon dedicated to this part of the nature magic spectrum, for functionality, theme and roleplay. Surely there is enough choice left for you to fulfil your needs and wants on the ranger

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
One of the big issues that I find with the ranger is the ability to hit multiple targets, usually we have the piercing arrows trait and the axe as and range pressure which doesn’t actually apply that much pressure since the arrow is a line type of aoe and using it against a moving target you miss most of its potential, and the axe is more of a condi weapon than an power focus weapon.

On this issue I can only think of 2 solutions but I believe that there are so many options so that the ranger can deal with multiple enemies.

- Making the ranger more durable in melee range by changing the traits so that you can get the "Signet of beastmaster " more accessible and making a “Enlargment” instead of proc the Signet of the Wild do the Stone one, by changing a few more traits and there position you can improve his survival so that you can actual use the Greatsword inside a melee train, a little rework/tuning up the damage on the weapon would help too

- Changing the Axe for a more physical damage oriented by taking all condition affect and increasing its base damage on the 1 and 2 and changing the 3 skill so that apply an 240 radius AoE field on the target.

Associated Risks
The problem with changing the traits will create a few new build for sPvP that can out class some of the existing ones and a bit of unbalance if done in wrong way.

Specific Game Mode: PvE

Proposal Overview: Increase buff range so ranger can get get and share group buffs from max longbow range

Goal of Proposal: One of the many reasons that using ranged weapons is bad on a ranger is that when you are running 5-mans you do not get any of the group buffs/boons. With the longbow there is a kitten ed if you, kitten ed if you don’t situation. Stay close for buffs and lose out on your autoattack or stay far away and lose out on all the group buffs.

Proposal Functionality: Buffs cast by melee characters will reach the max range a longbow can shoot from.

Prysin.8542:

Actually, why can’t Anet just let me “charm” that sexy Legendary Defender outside my spawn in WvW. You know, that tall guy with the shiny smile, and the nametag that says “Johnson”

Don’t you mean “Ramirez”?

By the way, I would rather have Fenrir the Kveldwulf pack leader from Eye of the North. You know, P/W two headed wolf boss?

Tempus.9540:

Sorry need to make this post for slight stress relief:

Keep faith . Here, play some mad-libs!

The “Ranger Player” is a resilient gamer that excels at fighting the good fight by drawing from countless examples in literature to support themselves as well as their allies. Alongside their iconic symbols (bow, blade, and Fluffy!), they have some of the best single target and sustained ideas that will whittle the Devs down until justice is done!

• See CDI about Rangers. Glimmer of Hope traitorously forms

I just wanted to tell you I burst out laughing when I read that .

BobbyT.7192:

Bryzy.2719:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

All things considered, many of us, the players, would dearly love to be able to play a viable burst build, or have some aspect of decent physical DPS. To limit the Ranger class to sustained damage is to contradict your own paradigm-shifting philosophy of “any profession can fulfill any role”. Furthermore, it’s actively mitigating our enjoyment of the profession. Essentially, there are those of us who only ever want to play Ranger, and, forgive the childish phrasing, but it is frankly unfair to deny us the potential enjoyment we can get out of this profession.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people talk about “classes fulfilling any role” like they expect any class to be able to do everything. As far as I’m aware, they only said each class can do 3 roles.
Control, support, damage.
When it comes to the damage, they never said every class will have high burst, just that they will be able to do damage in a certain way. And having lots of sustain damage vs burst is still consider damage

“we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage.”

Now with PvE, it’s up for debate whether or not is effective there, But that’s more of a problem with the design of the content then it is with the mechanics of a class

Maybe a little off topic, as this is more related to the general game mechanics than to the class itself.

The most successful builds in whatever game area tend to cover all 3 bases. They can do this because dmg, support and control aren’t black and white. There is a range of what you can do within each of those areas. This is how roles are further nuanced and differentiated between classes.

It’s better to think of these as a venn diagram with a ton of overlap as opposed to 3 separate circles.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I didn’t say Rangers are in the right spot. I just meant that we have to be very careful of the power creep.

The entire GW2 community knows they aren’t in the right spot. What did the class win with, a 2:1 margin over elementalists? The issue is, if you feel the class shouldn’t have burst or AE by design, it doesn’t feel like ANet is willing to take responsibility for the simple fact that the direction you’ve taken the class over the past 1.5 years has been a failure.

I’m sorry if you made this thread thinking number crunching and trait swaps was going to be enough to set this class down the right path, but the days of ‘low hanging fruit’ have come and gone. The class is looked down upon by the entire WvW community. It’s going to take drastic changes to fix it and no one is going to sit around while you nerf 7 other classes down to our level.

What is ANet’s opinion on why the Ranger class is so despised by the WvW community?

BobbyT.7192:

Bryzy.2719:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I realize that many classes have high burst right now, but our intent is to limit power creep as much as possible. Just because the Ranger’s damage is more spread out, doesn’t mean it does less damage than the burst of other classes. Does that make sense?

For example: One class could, in the span of 30 seconds, do 15k damage in say 5-10 seconds, but then their burst skills go on cooldown so they have to wait out the rest of the time before they can try again. A sustained class should be able to do that same amount of damage in that same amount of time, but the damage is more spread out (hence sustained). This can be better in certain situations, and allows for the sustained class to fill a hole in a team comp.

I’m not saying this is a perfect system or that it’s even fully functional in the game, I’m just trying to explain why doing burst shouldn’t necessarily be better than doing sustained damage. It depends on the situation.

We also know that some classes right now are better at burst than others, and those are things that we look to address in balance patches so there isn’t a surplus of any one class.

All things considered, many of us, the players, would dearly love to be able to play a viable burst build, or have some aspect of decent physical DPS. To limit the Ranger class to sustained damage is to contradict your own paradigm-shifting philosophy of “any profession can fulfill any role”. Furthermore, it’s actively mitigating our enjoyment of the profession. Essentially, there are those of us who only ever want to play Ranger, and, forgive the childish phrasing, but it is frankly unfair to deny us the potential enjoyment we can get out of this profession.

Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people talk about “classes fulfilling any role” like they expect any class to be able to do everything. As far as I’m aware, they only said each class can do 3 roles.
Control, support, damage.
When it comes to the damage, they never said every class will have high burst, just that they will be able to do damage in a certain way. And having lots of sustain damage vs burst is still consider damage

“we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage.”

Now with PvE, it’s up for debate whether or not is effective there, But that’s more of a problem with the design of the content then it is with the mechanics of a class

There’s one simple fact you’ve neglected.

Ranger is the only class without a decent burst build (whether physical or cond.).

Anet have at least 2 options here; the first of which appears to be the one they want to take:

1. To nerf all other classes’ DPS builds and keep Ranger as a “sustained damage” class. Not only would this infuriate the other classes but it also deprives the Ranger community of the one thing we all want.

2. To leave other classes’ DPS as-is (perhaps with exception to warriors) and give Rangers a viable DPS/burst method. This simultaneously avoids the risk of kittening off the other classes and makes the majority of Rangers happy by finally allowing them to play a fun build and be useful in PvE. It’s also the option that would require the least effort.

Yes I am starting to feel slightly frustrated at these stubborn design philosophies. The game is supposed to cater to the players, not to withhold some grand ideology for each class even if it is detrimental to peoples’ enjoyment of the game.

DragonFlu.7314:

Specific Game Mode
PvP
Proposal Overview
Changing Empathic Bonds to be more active
Goal of Proposal
Give the player access to more active condition removal.
Proposal Functionality
Change Empathic Bonds so the pet takes away 2-3 conditions when called back (hitting F3) on a 10 sec cd. Also, as a quality of life change, it would be awesome to be able to see how many seconds we left on trait cooldowns.
Associated Risks
Rangers must learn to where the F3 key is. Jokes aside, this would mean the player must look at his conditions to decide the best time to use the condi-cleanse, but forgetting to send the pet back out to fight (F1) may get the ranger into sticky situations… At the very least, it should be more engaging then how the Empathic Bonds currently works.

Second associated risk – Masters Bond impact
Third associated risk Degrades performance of NON BM bunkers
Fourth associated risk -
The feel we are underperforming but are reticient to increase our damage which means taking a passive skill of high defensive importance and making it player activated becomes an effective nerf to ranger effectiveness.

While I personally like some more active such a change would only make sense to me in the context of other defensive enhancements as well.

Within the context of the limitations they have outlined for us it is a nerf that supports only BM builds.

However if it retained it’s exiting function and when the pet was sent away the going away pet cleaned two conditions. AKA you got the passive, and could trigger the active on swap – the must have defensive would be even stronger but not a nerf.

Perhaps I misunderstood your exact intent

My question is, can the pet AI even be improved? And if not, why are we trying to do anything with pets? Adding more problems to an already clunky mechanic. Also, if Ranger is supposed to deal sustain damage by staying alive or w/e was said about that, why not change the main hand sword auto for PvE at least to I can dodge when I want it to so I am actually able to survive? Somebody has already admitted that server problems with the Ranger’s main hand sword and activation time. So if that’s a problem, just ditch the “Unique-ness”

Thanks Nike for the Madlibs, I’ll take all the fun from this thread I can get.

urgh. It’s not like I’m trying to be a pain here with my stress relief post, but when it hits you how very different the Dev’s perception of what the class currently is, and your own…I think I got Hope Whiplash. I need another cup of tea.

Why can’t ranger cheese?

Cheese = abuse a certain skill.

Let me illustrate cheese:

Thief – Blind then Steal then Cloak and Dagger then Backstab then Blind … repeat. When in danger cast Shadow Refuge.

Warrior – Charge/Bullrush then 100 Blades then AA. When group of enemies arrive, turn 180 Spin, Charge, Bullrush.

I propose allow Ranger to cheese. I’ll be honest, i’ll will suggest ways to compete not ways to “glow” with aspects.