Guild Wars 2

Allie Murdock.8152:

We recognize there are a number of issues with the pet AI and general functionality, so that is something that will come first. Rangers are first and foremost a pet class, but they are also great skirmishers and some of the best sustained long range damage.

I don’t want you to think we’re going to ignore the idea or the feedback around the pet, but it could very well be the case that fixing some of the major nagging issues with the pet would make it a more desirable aspect of the Ranger.

Specific Game Mode
WvW

Proposal Overview
Change pet ‘family’ skills to compensate for flaws in the AI.

Goal of Proposal
Currently melee pets have a great deal of difficulty hitting a moving target, and doing consistent damage. In addition they have difficultly with AOE, having no recourse to avoid it.

This idea seeks to rectify these problems.

Proposal Functionality
Most of the pet family skills are very ordinary, and have little in they way of useful mechanics beyond a leap here and there.
If for example Canine and Feline pets had an auto-attack similar to the Ranger’s Sword AA, where it was leaping constantly at the target, then the pet would have an easier time staying in range. Or having secondary skills that cause it to leap back if it takes a lot of damage.

Mechanics could also be lifted directly from other new mobs that have these enhanced mechanics, such as the Molten Beserker could be a good template for highly aggressive pets such as Canines and Felines.

Bears, Drake and Porcine could lift mechanics from the Molten Protector, dropping large area of effect defensive buffs.
Moas and Birds could do likewise, but be more supportive/healing in nature.

Spiders and Devourers could take a page from Molten Resonators, with attacks that pierce, or line nukes that hit everything along it’s path.

By carefully reworking the pets basic skills, you can make up for the flaws inherent in the AI. Having gap closes will help keep them in the desired range. AOE buffs and area of effects could make defensive pets do a better job of protecting the Ranger and give them something to work off of, like a combo field.
And ranged pets would work better against multiple opponents.

Associated Risks

It does risk making pets potentially too powerful, but this should be easy enough to deal with by tweaking damage numbers to keep it within acceptable levels.
Animation may also become an issue, since pets seems to have much more limited animation states.

Game Mode Specific
PVX

Proposal Overview

Redirect the direction of the profession .

Goal of Proposal

Adapt pet skills to the profession .

Proposal Functionality

• (A) healing skills .

• - Healing symbiotic :
  You cures 35% of life lost pet in combat ;
  The pet heals 35% of life lost by you in combat.
  Length : 10 sec.

• - Troll Unguent :
  Your pet and you, regeneráis health over time.
  Health per second for you : 181.
  Pet Health per second to: 201.

• (B) Skills Shout .
• - Protect me :
  Instead of attacking , it will protect your pet causing fear around you.
  Damage: 41
  Fear 2.8 sec : flee.
  Radio : 300

• - Hide yourself ( Guard) : Your pet and you, while you gain stealth and skill protection lasts.
  10 sec Stealth : invisible enemies.
  Protection 10 sec : -33 % damage taken .
  Incapazitar 6 seconds -50 % movement .

• - (PVE ) Search and Rescue : Your pet seek and would revive fallen ally .
• - ( PVP) Browse and Tops : Your pet seek and finish off an enemy despondent.

• - Sic Em: Your pet and you, run about faster and do more damage .
  10 sec Attack : 40 % damage, 40 % movement velodidad .
  Revealed 4 sec : your pet and you do not you can Stealh .

• © Elite Skills .

• - Arrows of Grenth ( Reaper Grenth ) : Your arrows are transformed into arrows Grenth , these freeze and poison the duration of the skill.
  Frozen 4 s : -66 % movement speed , -66 % recharge skill.
  4 seconds Poison : 109 damage , 33% healing effectiveness .
  Length: 15 sec .
  Radio : 1500 .
  Unblockable .

• - Melandru : You transform into a Melandru .
  Stability 60 sec : You ignore control effects ( lightheadedness, rejection , shoot, shoot down, sinking, buoyancy , fear and stunning ) .
  Length : 60 Sec .

• - Spirit of Nature : Summons a spirit that follows you and heals allies . Command the spirit to revive and cure conditions allies in the area.
  Healing : 50
  Length: 80 sec
  Interval : 3 sec .
  Radio 600

xallever.1874:

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

To be honest, I am against this train of thought for GW2. (even though these days I play a melee class in PvE – like we all do I guess) I understand where it comes from, but in a game with dodges and active defences, it will always be possible to be in melee, admittedly sometimes with great difficulty. Making it so things are not balanced to do similiar DPS between melee and ranged means that no matter what they do, if you bring a ranged weapon, you will be seen as a bad player. For good or ill, DPS is currently the metric by which we are judged, and by saying ranged should always do less just means half your weapon options are unsuitable for Dungeons.

Ranged weapons should be rebalanced to do similiar damage as melee, but melee still need some bonus for being more likely of getting attacked*. What this bonus consists of, being more access to boons/shields/evades/control is hard for me to say. But fundamentally, we somehow need to address the divide of players expectations of wanting to play this class ranged, the perceptions of the Devs on how damage should be split between weapons and how the PvE Meta currently is today.

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

As Gawker said, I too WvW a lot. I have a score of issues when trying to use longbow in WvW. The arrows are slow moving and can be avoided without dodging. Auto-attack cancels if the target gets behind you. Hills in the terrain cause arrows to become “obstructed”. Aegis, dodge roll, stealth, clones, retaliation are all good reasons why arrows never hit their mark. Anything less than 1,500 range is nerfing your damage anyway, on top of already nerfed damage just because you are using a ranged weapon.

On the contrary, my warrior has no problem keeping up with rangers and other professions before eating them alive.

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA. For 5 seconds, the melee heroes may be slowed, immobilized, while the ranged heroes continue to DPS them not being hit at all. Once the melee heroes manage to close the range gap, this should be when they beat the ranged heroes to pieces. But the first 5 seconds of ranged advantage should be life-threatening to the melee users.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

WatchTheShow.7203:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

Ok, I am trying to follow what you’re saying. I kind of understand, but in the game, this never happens. My warrior’s attacks always connect with mobs. I can stand on top of the boss and facetank it while hitting it continuously until it is dead. My warrior’s greatsword auto attack hits faster than my ranger’s longbow auto attack does. Did you mean specifically in WvW?

You are right in saying that the game’s content so far actively discourages this. I never liked it when anyone is ranging unless it’s necessary. I’m just saying that this problem may have more to do with how the game content is designed by way of not providing more situations in which ranged encounters are preferred, fun, untrivial, etc.

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

Ok rolling with this. The only time this happens in WvW, is if I am on top of a wall using a longbow to attack an enemy on the ground. From here, the enemy can easily run away from me and my damage.

However, if I jump down, or if I meet an enemy on a plain level field (basically the entire map) the enemy can close the distance in less than a second. All rangers have is a knockback #4, and that is on a traited 12 second cooldown. If this shot is blocked or dodge rolled through, it’s over. I must switch to melee or die.

On my warrior alone I have 3 gap closers I can use at any time. 2 of them are tied to weapons. 1 for each weapon, so no matter which weapon I am using, I always have at least 1 gap closer. From there I have built in weapon mechanics that can keep people from kiting me. I even have 2 condition removals so if I get CCed, I can get out of it very quickly.

Guild Wars 2 is not like other MMOs. Every class has gap closers and CC. Obviously some have a lot more than others. Because of this, kiting never happens in WvW (at least not with a ranger). I have never gone up against a ranger and had them kite me successfully. It just doesn’t work. Too many condition removers, too many gap closers, dodge rolls, etc.

Now in PvE, if I am hitting an enemy while high up on a ledge, the mob will become invulnerable and I will not be able to kill it or even damage it (see fractal harpies). Therefore that whole point of range being “advantageous” in those situations is a moot point.

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

You need to check out Warrior Rifle. It’s ridiculous.

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

You need to check out Warrior Rifle. It’s ridiculous.

I remember once I was on top of a tower, spamming longbow #1 on an ele down below me. She was in a huge zerg. I had been slowly plinking away at her health for a while, hoping she wouldn’t notice and would die. When she got to about 10% health, someone put down a water field and she healed back to full health. At that point I looked like a total durp. So I stowed my longbow and promptly walked through the gate into Lion’s Arch and went AFK in front of the bank for the rest of the day.

The first thing that came to the front of my mind was, “Here I am, the supposed ‘master of range’ and I can’t even do enough dps as a full zerker to make an ele back away and see me as a threat.”

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

There are thousands of better options than these. Yet we keep buffing these because they don’t have synergy with ranger weapons?

That is bad. I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst. Read my 2nd proposal on page 20

rpfohr.7048:

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst.

And also why do we have quickening zephyr? That is definitely the definition of burst damage.

WatchTheShow.7203:

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

Ok rolling with this. The only time this happens in WvW, is if I am on top of a wall using a longbow to attack an enemy on the ground. From here, the enemy can easily run away from me and my damage.

However, if I jump down, or if I meet an enemy on a plain level field (basically the entire map) the enemy can close the distance in less than a second. All rangers have is a knockback #4, and that is on a traited 12 second cooldown. If this shot is blocked or dodge rolled through, it’s over. I must switch to melee or die.

On my warrior alone I have 3 gap closers I can use at any time. 2 of them are tied to weapons. 1 for each weapon, so no matter which weapon I am using, I always have at least 1 gap closer. From there I have built in weapon mechanics that can keep people from kiting me. I even have 2 condition removals so if I get CCed, I can get out of it very quickly.

Guild Wars 2 is not like other MMOs. Every class has gap closers and CC. Obviously some have a lot more than others. Because of this, kiting never happens in WvW (at least not with a ranger). I have never gone up against a ranger and had them kite me successfully. It just doesn’t work. Too many condition removers, too many gap closers, dodge rolls, etc.

Now in PvE, if I am hitting an enemy while high up on a ledge, the mob will become invulnerable and I will not be able to kill it or even damage it (see fractal harpies). Therefore that whole point of range being “advantageous” in those situations is a moot point.

Yes, so these are the problems for a class where the sustained damage is the vision. If ever GW2 wants to involve some form of ranged weapon combat (which a lot of Mesmers already do in WvW btw by using their GS/Staff) for the rangers, they need to work on gap-maintainer abilities, in the forms of evade like the thief’s heal or more CC. Mesmers have GS #5, Staff #2, invis, blink. By no means I think the GS ought to deal as much damage as melee weapons.

I can see one scenario where ranged combat is preferred. For instance, the final boss in HotW path 1. It’s possible to go melee, but it’s also much riskier. So ranged combat is optimal for an easy learning curve. You can see how positioning is an advantage here? While the boss does the whirling axe attack that reflects projectiles, Mesmers’ GS, ranged weapon, is able to DPS while those in melee are forced to sit out for a couple of secs. This is the key to out-DPSing melee.

WatchTheShow.7203:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

You need to check out Warrior Rifle. It’s ridiculous.

I remember once I was on top of a tower, spamming longbow #1 on an ele down below me. She was in a huge zerg. I had been slowly plinking away at her health for a while, hoping she wouldn’t notice and would die. When she got to about 10% health, someone put down a water field and she healed back to full health. At that point I looked like a total durp. So I stowed my longbow and promptly walked through the gate into Lion’s Arch and went AFK in front of the bank for the rest of the day.

The first thing that came to the front of my mind was, “Here I am, the supposed ‘master of range’ and I can’t even do enough dps as a full zerker to make an ele back away and see me as a threat.”

Yup happens all the time to every ranger I see including me. Power rangers absolutely crap damage because 30% of it is tied up to an autistic pet. I am a free loot bag, srsly.

Specific Game Mode
PvE but could be considered for WvW

Proposal Overview
In order to make a Ranger (and their ever-important pets) feel more personal and more involved as an avatar for the player, a rework of Pets is in order. The following three points should, in my mind, bring life back into an estranged class and making them more viable and respected for “high level” dungeons or Fractals.

Goal of Proposal
I know this is not the case, but pets feel like an afterthought. Pets should be a ‘living’ part of the character, interacting as much with the environment as the player, taking more direction from the player (as a pet, or partner, for the nature-themed class) and making pets feel more like a choice. This makes them feel and play in a more dynamic way and would give them more consideration by min-maxers. I know this is sort of taboo, but there’s a community for it and I hate the idea of having non-consideration for Fractals or something.

Proposal Functionality

1. Allow the pet to “guard” an area with a function skill similar to, or replacing, “heel,” or ground-target your pet to move to locations, maybe as a utility skill.
2. Allow players to stow (maybe temporarily or hindering the player) pets, making Rangers feel less “clumsy” and more welcomed into high level instanced play.
3. Add a more unique skill to the pet archetypes, with bears getting an aggressive (charge) or tanky (enrage for less damage?) skill, spiders binding or laying snares, cats as a tactical stealther and birds getting quickness or damage stacks based on time chasing targets between hits (to simulate building speed) as a few examples.
   Traits would have to be modified, maybe making certain pets have an affinity for certain trees, for example with cats and wolves under Skirmishing, improving opening strike duration while stealthed or improving damage of the pet if flanking.

Associated Risks
Ignoring competitive play, accepting a build like this makes one need to consider all the implications, from dungeons and fractals to open world exploring. It could make certain paths, or maybe dungeons, completely warp. It could also hinder the class, limiting total pet usage (instead of seeing an even split), the variety of builds or, heaven forbid, make it “meta” to just stop using your pet.

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.

Because of ranger pet’s poor AI not being able to hit moving targets, the ranger’s class is being handicapped by 30-40%. So I doubt a 20% increase to our damage would be much of a ‘power creep’ since we will still be handicapped from 10-20% because of the pet. I understand that you guys want to fix pets but honestly, it’s been over a year now that we have had to deal with this handicap with no one bothering to fix pets. How much longer are we going to have to put up with this handicap?

And when you mention sustained DPS compared to burst DPS, Burst is KING. In your example, you said that the DPS class can do 15k damage in the first 10 seconds? honestly, its usually more like 5 seconds, anyways, what you have to realize is that most classes, we only have 15k HP or LESS. And some of these classes do these bursts so quick that there is no time to hit the heal or even after the heal what little damage they can do is just enough to finish the job. Thief’s can take you down in three hits, no cooldowns on their abilities and if they fail, they just invis, which pulls them out of combat and heals them and they can just start all over again while his opponent is still in combat, unable to run at normal speed because he’s still in combat mode. No risk there with great burst. It’s funny how they said all classes will be able to go healing, damage or whatever route they want, but they never showed the disclaimer saying except for ranger’s, they have to be sustained damage only.

Which comes another thing, why, in order for a ranger to do damage, do we have to use melee weapons? Your own description of ranger’s emphasizes that we are suppose to be able to take down our targets from range, which means we are suppose to be a ranged class, yet our ranged damage is poor compared to our melee damage. This professions needs a lot of help and by suggesting that you guys are afraid of a ‘power creep’ just tells me that I shouldn’t be looking for any meaningful, needed changes anytime soon, which is a real shame since we’ve waited for over a year for change and haven’t seen anything worthwhile! I don’t mean to be coming off negatively here but we have waited to long for updates to this pathetic profession and every time I read something from the devs I feel more assured that no one in the company even plays the ranger. The gap difference between ranger’s and all other professions is just mind boggling and your talking about a ‘power creep’. Hell, if the ranger’s receive a power creep I’d say GREAT, it’s about time the shoe is on the other foot! work us down from there, but I’m sick and tired of these minimal changes that do absolutely NOTHING for us, and we’re still dealing with the stupid pets! Can’t you use the Necro’s as your pet class? Sorry, I’m just frustrated and after reading your posts I know for a fact not to look forward to anything on the next patch.

rpfohr.7048:

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

There are thousands of better options than these. Yet we keep buffing these because they don’t have synergy with ranger weapons?

That is bad. I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst. Read my 2nd proposal on page 20

Yea, give us a bootleg killshot that does as much as maul. Please do it.

xallever.1874:

I can see one scenario where ranged combat is preferred. For instance, the final boss in HotW path 1. It’s possible to go melee, but it’s also much riskier. So ranged combat is optimal for an easy learning curve. You can see how positioning is an advantage here? While the boss does the whirling axe attack that reflects projectiles, Mesmers’ GS, ranged weapon, is able to DPS while those in melee are forced to sit out for a couple of secs.

Ok, this is true too, and I am glad you brought this up. This happens at Claw of Jormag, Shatterer and Inquest Golem Mark II. See, I feel this is not a problem with ranged weapons, or even players exploiting ranged weapons, but a problem with the boss mechanic. The Fire Elemental boss wreaks havoc on ranged players (fiery tornadoes ahoy! Unforgiving ranged AOE everywhere), revamped Tequatl, Marionette, and the new Wurm boss will eat ranged players alive if you can’t dodge roll sufficiently and don’t know how to move. These new boss mechanics/encounters are designed much better so it discourages the bearbow, the “afk while auto-attacking” mentality. What they need to do is redesign some of the bosses and encounters so if they did bring range up to par with melee weapons, then going range will be just as lethal as being in the face of the boss. We already have to deal with one-shot ranged AOE that a lot of melee players don’t need to worry about (Great Maw boss event, icy tornadoes/giant AOE chill tornadoes).

WatchTheShow.7203:

xallever.1874:

gawker.8340:

xallever.1874:

By theory, ranged DPS out-DPSes a melee not by the numbers per hit, but by the fact that a ranged DPS has more ability to connect hits. So in 10 seconds, a warrior may hit once for 4k, while the ranged DPS only hits 2.5k. But in that span of time, the ranged DPS then may hit 10 times, clearly outshining the melee.

It shouldn’t be the case that ranged DPS hits as hard as melee per hit. Just that there should be more situations where being in the melee range is unsuitable.

What are you saying? Ranged attacks have many problems with obstruction, body block, out of range, and projectile lagg. Range attacks, especially slow moving LB shots hit less than 30% of the time.

I’m not saying that ranged DPS must always hit more. I’m saying that this is how ranged DPS is normally out-DPSing melee in general. This is how it is in games like WoW or DotA.

Of course every range attack suffers those potential DPS loss, but the reason why they shouldn’t hit as hard is because range is already a great advantage due to kiting possibility, positioning, etc.

In AC dungeon, when you kill the mobs atop the rocks in melee is usually an advantage only privileged to the ranged DPSers because this advantage is all about being unreachable yet you still manage to connect hits.

Ok rolling with this. The only time this happens in WvW, is if I am on top of a wall using a longbow to attack an enemy on the ground. From here, the enemy can easily run away from me and my damage.

However, if I jump down, or if I meet an enemy on a plain level field (basically the entire map) the enemy can close the distance in less than a second. All rangers have is a knockback #4, and that is on a traited 12 second cooldown. If this shot is blocked or dodge rolled through, it’s over. I must switch to melee or die.

On my warrior alone I have 3 gap closers I can use at any time. 2 of them are tied to weapons. 1 for each weapon, so no matter which weapon I am using, I always have at least 1 gap closer. From there I have built in weapon mechanics that can keep people from kiting me. I even have 2 condition removals so if I get CCed, I can get out of it very quickly.

Guild Wars 2 is not like other MMOs. Every class has gap closers and CC. Obviously some have a lot more than others. Because of this, kiting never happens in WvW (at least not with a ranger). I have never gone up against a ranger and had them kite me successfully. It just doesn’t work. Too many condition removers, too many gap closers, dodge rolls, etc.

Now in PvE, if I am hitting an enemy while high up on a ledge, the mob will become invulnerable and I will not be able to kill it or even damage it (see fractal harpies). Therefore that whole point of range being “advantageous” in those situations is a moot point.

Yeah, well there is the issue with Ranged DSP in a nutshell.
While gap closers are a dime a dozen, gap creators are near non-existent, esp on Ranged weapons. The Shortbow has one, and it’s so-so.
I think the Mesmer’s Phase Retreat is the best since it’s instant and creates a clone, thou the distance covered is kinda pitiful.

I guess that’s really the issue, the few skills that you can use to pull range and keep track of your target (ie not turning around and Rushing in the opposite direction) are few and far between, and the distance you gain is absolutely pitiful.
You jump back, they take two steps forward and chop your nipples off.

If Ranged weapons want to be a solid contender with melee, they need to be able to reliably pull distance to an equal degree to the gap closes pitted against them.

gawker.8340:

rpfohr.7048:

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

There are thousands of better options than these. Yet we keep buffing these because they don’t have synergy with ranger weapons?

That is bad. I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst. Read my 2nd proposal on page 20

Yea, give us a bootleg killshot that does as much as maul. Please do it.

All I am saying is that we have all these things like remorseless for that 1 hit crit,
moment of clarity,
attack of opportunity,
Available to quickness (although i guess you could argue this is Burst DOT with auto attack as it does the most damage on most of the ranger weapons)

And we only really have 1 skill (maul) to take advantage, if we had a 2nd it would increase build diversity.

I do like that my ranger can whittle down the opponent, but I have found that other classes have just as much sustain damage as ranger AND they can burst better.

I do not find rangers have a sustain advantage over most classes as allie suggests
Perhaps over some warriors and most guardian but i find it ends there.

Atherakhia.4086:

Bran.7425:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I’ve created my ranger expecting an archer.

Was this because of just the profession’s flavor text? Or because of some other game’s idea of what a ‘Ranger’ is? Please don’t say it was because Ranger has the ‘range’ as the first five letters.

I can’t think of a single MMO in the past 25 years that has had a Ranger/Hunter class that wasn’t focused on range. I’ve played several that ranged combat was about even with melee. I’ve played several where the class didn’t have a pet, or the pet was optional. I’ve never played one that ranged combat was the least viable option by far.

Even if we go by the class description in GW2, we’re left with the impression that this is a ranged combat class and the pet is a support feature. This is obviously not true as ranged combat is more of a support feature while the pet is so invested in the class there isn’t a single tree without pet traits.

Agreed. There is no other class in this game that should do bows better than Ranger. The fact that bow combat has taken a backseat in terms of fight mechanics, dps, and utility, all point to an underperforming weapon type.

Split the bows further into condition/power by upping bleed stacking and poison duration on the shortbow, and remove the mechanically devoid minimum range from the longbow while making the knockback another punchy dps ability with a root, or keeping the knockback but applying a root.

Another thing is that bows just require entirely too much traiting to make even borderline effective. Consolidating MM line traits would go a long way here.

Every action I’ve seen is that they are absolutely afraid of the idea of ACTUAL range dps in the form of a bow in this game. Even removing it from the description altogether.

The problem is that ranged combat is viewed by the ones making decisions as a support option, rather than a main means of defining a class. Melee combat must be easier to balance around, or are we still holding onto this big bad conception of range advantage that doesn’t even exist in this game?

rpfohr.7048:

gawker.8340:

rpfohr.7048:

Question to Allie,

If Rangers are not suppose to burst,
Then why give them attacks of opportunity and Moment of clarity?

There are thousands of better options than these. Yet we keep buffing these because they don’t have synergy with ranger weapons?

That is bad. I think rangers would be on par and able to take advantage of these if they did have a burst. Read my 2nd proposal on page 20

Yea, give us a bootleg killshot that does as much as maul. Please do it.

All I am saying is that we have all these things like remorseless for that 1 hit crit,
moment of clarity,
attack of opportunity,
Available to quickness (although i guess you could argue this is Burst DOT with auto attack as it does the most damage on most of the ranger weapons)

And we only really have 1 skill (maul) to take advantage, if we had a 2nd it would increase build diversity.

I do like that my ranger can whittle down the opponent, but I have found that other classes have just as much sustain damage as ranger AND they can burst better.

I do not find rangers have a sustain advantage over most classes as allie suggests
Perhaps over some warriors and most guardian but i find it ends there.

Ya i know, i wasn’t being sarcastic. I literally want to bootleg Warrior’s killshot and give it to ranger. It seems so much more appropriate on Ranger.

Is there any planned date for the update for the ranger to be done? I’m really curious how this will play out.

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.

Idk if anyone has said this, and if I am repeating I apologize in advance.
I get your position, I really do, but pound for pound Burst DPS is greater in almost every circumstance then Sustained DPS.

If it were just damage calculations, maybe they could equal out, but you can’t just look at these things in a vacuum. Because of two things, Heal Skills and Dodging.
The longer the battle is drawn out the more your target has the ability to heal up, and dodge your attacks, reducing the effectiveness of DPS overtime.
(thou conditions will continue to deal damage all throughout if not removed, which is very easy to do for the same reasons)

All awhile your opponent is able to attack back, thus increasing the overall amount of damage that they will be able to do in return.

Burst DPS on the other hand can pack enough damage to kill players outright, and death is the ultimate debuff. No more healing, no more dodging, no damage. And then you can take you time recharging between fights.
The quicker you kill your target, the better off you are going to be. Every time.

-
What is worse is that every other profession has sustained damage, in addition to burst.
Except for the Ranger, so you can see why people are animated about this issue.

Now this might not be a problem if Sustained DPS were capable of doing significantly more damage over time then Burst, which it doesn’t, esp for the Ranger.
Or, if the Sustained was also accompanied with conditions that prevented or reduced the targets ability to recover, thus making up for the fact that your target is going to heal during the drawn out battle.

Say if the Ranger had better access to Poison and Weakness then other professions.
Or reworking Poison so that it reduced healing from all sources, not just from the target. Or perhaps have it stack like Torment, where it grows in effectiveness with the potency of the Poison.

I’ll make a formal proposal on what I think can be done with Poison.
Also giving the Ranger more conditions such as Blind and Torment would also go a long way for their Sustained DPS.
There are ways to make the Ranger a great sustained dps class, but what we have is not it.

Dalanor.5387:

If you make an actual dodge animation to pets, how would they use it?
How would you prevent that when you aren’t on the exact same spot as your pet and use a dodge the pet wont dodge right in a aoe circle?
If you make an invulnerable frame to pets while the Ranger use a dodge, how would you prevent them to move out of dangerous zones?
(Okay, micromanaging with F3 would solve this but you get it.)
How would a possible built in damage reduction (be it single target or aoe) affect the pet and the Ranger in a PvP environment?

I’m happy the topic of pet dodging (or just increasing pet survivability in complex content) came back up! I posted a proposal for player controlled (not AI) pet dodging fairly early on, but I suppose it got lost in the tide. So here it is again:

• Specific Game Mode: PvE (though honestly I think any new pet-dodge mechanic should be consistent across all game formats)
• Proposal Overview: Alter the ranger-specific profession skill bar to allow rangers to execute timed pet dodges.
• Goal of Proposal: Pets suffer from limited mobility and unnecessary vulnerability in the GW2 combat system, which is centered around the dodge and evasion mechanic. As NPC’s, pets will and should always carry certain disadvantages, but taking significantly more damage due to not being able to dodge should not be one of those disadvantages. Adding the ability for pets to dodge will increase the control rangers have over their most crucial, unique, and valuable profession mechanic, their pet. Note that the specific proposal aims to give the player more agency, create consistency with existing game mechanics, and hopefully be easier and more feasible to implement.
• Proposal Functionality:
  1) Alter the “Attack my target” (F1) ranger profession skill so that when pressed twice consecutively, the pet dodges in the direction of the targeted enemy, and continues attacking. Similarly, alter the “Return to me” (F3) ranger profession skill so that when pressed twice consecutively, the pet dodges in the direction of the player and returns to the player afterward. Alter the pet health bar interface so that a pet’s dodge meter is shown above the health bar. Note that pressing the pet movement commands twice consecutively is meant to mimic players pressing movement keys twice consecutively to dodge in a given direction.
  2) Change the Guard and Avoid Combat functions to effect pet dodge behavior:
  - Under “Avoid Combat,” pets dodge whenever you dodge. Thus, you’d be controlling pet dodge movement in this mode directly with your character’s dodge movement. Furthermore, pets will physically stay closer to the ranger in this mode.
  - Instead of the Guard combat function, have two new functions: Aggressive and Defensive mode.
  - Under Aggressive mode, pets will continue attacking enemies and only dodge when you directly tell them to with F1 or F3. Furthermore, they will automatically attack enemies who are further out than in Defensive mode. This mode will be useful when the pet is fighting at melee distance, but the player is ranged. It will also be useful when using the pet as a tank, while the player either attacks at a distance, or from behind with melee.
  - In Defensive mode, pets will dodge with the player, like in Avoid Combat mode, but will resume attacking thereafter. Thus, whenever the player double taps the movement key to dodge (or presses the dodge button), their pet will dodge alongside them without having to press F1 or F3. Furthermore, pets will only automatically attack enemies in melee range, and will need to be directly commanded using F1 to attack enemies further away. Pets will also physically stay closer to rangers in this mode than in Aggressive mode. This mode will facilitate defensive melee combat alongside pets, and prevent players from having to scramble to make both their pet and their character dodge separately when they’re getting hit by the same attacks.
• Associated Risks:
  - Ranger pet UI may seem overly cluttered with a dodge bar above health bar.
  - Timing pet dodging may make it difficult to use.
  - Potential for new bugs with new skill functionalities.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Rework the Poison condition to make it stack and be a more effective option for Sustained DPS.

Goal of Proposal
Currently Poison is a pretty weak condition comparatively, and many other professions have much stronger sources of it.
This idea is to give the condition more nuisance and depth, while making the Ranger a master of Poison by comparison, and improving their Sustain damage by weakening their targets ability to recover.

Proposal Functionality
Have Poison stack in potency, instead of in duration.
It stacks up to 5 times, increasing damage per second and reduction in healing from all sources per stack.
1 stack reduce healing by 20%
2 stacks reduce healing by 29%
3 stacks reduce healing by 38%
4 stacks reduce healing by 45%
5 stacks reduce healing by 50%

(something like this, where the percentage increase between each stack is less then that last, topping out around 50-60%)

Where as other professions could have fairly rapid application of short duration of Poison, that could stack high enough to deal some damage, but fall off quickly.
Or low stacks that last a long time, or stronger stacks that have a short duration.

But only the Ranger has both potency and duration to make good usage of Poison for Sustained DPS. Reducing healing from all sources would prevent it from be circumvented by outside healing, such as Water Fields.

Associated Risks
Could quite likely make the Ranger even more powerful in SPvP, possibly over powered in that regard.
I don’t know enough about SPvP as how to avoid that.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
A lot of suggestions in this thread toy with the idea of overhauling the pets. I think they just need a few tweaks and buffs to be effective.

Goal of Proposal
Instead of making pets a hindrance, make them a true benefit. Make having a ranger in a group desireable because its pet’s f2 is beneficial to the whole group.

Proposal Functionality
Right now, our pets are a glorified punching bag. Although it has some nice single target DPS, I monitor my pet mostly so empathetic bond can pull conditions off of me. There’s a few problems (at least glaring problems) with our pets:

1) A lot of our pet functionality, which supposedly boosts our survivability, kills our pets. E.g, transfering conditions, intercepting damage, and so on. These need to change so that the pets cure conditions, and block damage without taking it on themselves. Imagine having a group-wide condition cleanser in signet of renewal. Instead of guaranteeing your pets death, it’s an extremely powerful sigil. This alone is a huge change that will improve the class significantly.

2) All pet f2 skills need to be instant cast. This may involve a round of balancing, but I personally find the f2 skills are hit and miss. Sometimes they take forever to fire, sometimes they take forever to cast, and (worse) sometimes they look like they fired but nothing happens. Making them instant cast turns our pets f2 skill into an easy-to-use bonus skill that we can accurately time due to its instant nature.

3) Make pet f2 buffs better. Instead of giving a few seconds of fury, or a few stacks of might, make it something really meaningful. Having fury or might is nice, but by itself it pales in comparison to other classes. The pet f2 skill can be our way of providing huge group-wide buffs. Instead of 5 stacks of might on the jungle stalker, what about 5 stacks of might, 5s of fury, and 5s of stability? It’s not that big of a change but it makes a huge difference for what we provide for our group.

Associated Risks
Always a chance of too much buffing to our pets, but they seriously need it.

Yoh.8469:

Burst DPS on the other hand can pack enough damage to kill players outright, and death is the ultimate debuff. No more healing, no more dodging, no damage. And then you can take you time recharging between fights.
The quicker you kill your target, the better off you are going to be. Every time.

In a January Ready Up episode they said that the crit-damage nerf that is coming up is a first step towards balancing roles. They specifically mentioned the current idea that the best way to support your allies was simply killing faster instead of controlling the enemy or supporting allies with skills. They plan to change that.

Specific Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
Indeed ,mainly for more damage buff and pets’ system rework.

Goal of Proposal
Boost the all weapon skill damage and fix the pets’ system that make pet or rangers’ pet-system worth using
Besides, the conditions removal and break stun skill should buff too.

Proposal Functionality

For the pets:
First of all , to make pet dps or function reliable, especially for the moving target ,
melee pet auto attack should leap (may not be leap finisher but need to leap) or shadow step to target
and make melee pet auto attack cleaves.
And pets’ F2 should be more reliable, active at the moment when press F2.
Besides , pets’ attribute should share a number of percentage of rangers’.
If add points to trait of beastmastery then it will add the percentage of the rangers’ sharing.
Like 20-30% basic sharing, and 50-60% sharing if traited.
That will decide the pet function and make their type more close to their master.
Such as a bear of the zerker rangers can make a high dps too.
And one more for pets, pls make bears do more damage and make cats tanky ,
thats means pet attributes more average ,but function are different.

For the pets’ system :
In my point of view , pet can be stow or active permanent anytime by rangers themselves.
If pets stowed, the rangers will receive a basic damage buff,
it must depend on the beastmastery trait,I call it “Wild-Power”.
When pets stow,the F1 to F4 can change as a kind of buff supply base on the 2 pets’ types u stow.
I call it “Wild-Blessing”.
Such as :
F1,F2 for pet No.1:
like cats will supply: fury , might, open-strike or some else boon for offensive,
maybe apply some conditions when rangers attack.
F3,F4 for pet No.2 is similar above:
like bears will supply: protect, condition removal or stability etc.

To avoid the ranger too op with my design ,the stow or active may not be use in combat.
So ranger have to choose both pet or “wild power” before combat.
It depend on the final test of the new ranger-rework, if dev think its too OP ,
then make it can not stow or active pets in combat.

For the weapon skill :
The only goal for me is boost the basic damage, especially for the melee weapon .
The reason why lfg show “no ranger” is mainly cause of the poor dps of rangers.
If ranger can not be rework to more damage of melee weapon skill ,then improve rangers’ range attack :
Longbow, auto attack act faster; Shortbow’s auto attack apply bleeding from all position ; Axe’s auto attack deal more damage.

For the traits:
I suggest the grandmaster trait of beastmaster should have one trait like follow :
pet immunity damage when ranger is not downed or defeated.
In the current version ,ranger will lose a part of dps when boss 1-hit-down their pet,
so I think this situation will be changed by the above beastmastery grandmaster-trait.

Besides, beastmastery trait should have change for more base on my design above,
like add some trait for “Wild-Power”

For the others :
The conditions removal and break stun skill should add more or lower their CD.

Associated Risks
Maybe change too much from the original design.
For the professional balance , pls dont make it too powerful then nerf ,and make more testing for new ranger.

misterdevious.6482:

Yoh.8469:

Burst DPS on the other hand can pack enough damage to kill players outright, and death is the ultimate debuff. No more healing, no more dodging, no damage. And then you can take you time recharging between fights.
The quicker you kill your target, the better off you are going to be. Every time.

In a January Ready Up episode they said that the crit-damage nerf that is coming up is a first step towards balancing roles. They specifically mentioned the current idea that the best way to support your allies was simply killing faster instead of controlling the enemy or supporting allies with skills. They plan to change that.

True. I believe it may have even been a dev who said that ‘death was the ultimate debuff’, and he was right in saying so. But it’s going to take more then just bringing burst down, but bringing sustain up. Your’s still going to have a problem with your opponent recovering while you take your sweet time killing them.

So giving the Ranger more options for Weakness, Torment maybe, and perhaps reworking Poison as a condition so the Rangers stand out in that regard.
Of course they still need to fix pets so that they can deal damage consistently and not be such a liability.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

This is the exact same Dev-philosophy spread all over the Necro forums, only using the buzzword “attrition” instead of “resilient” and “sustained damage.”

So which profession is supposed to be the attrition class? Ranger or Necro? Or both? At the moment, neither does the job well, if at all. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the game by its very nature does not support the “vision” for the class. It seems to me better to change the vision than attempt to force the profession into a preconceived expectation that’s incompatible with the game mechanics, as it were.

Also, the vocabulary sounds suspiciously PvP-centric, once again betraying a frustrating bias toward one particular game mode.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

I would’ve thought that to be the role of a heavy armor class with the highest health pool in the game and nearly godlike condition removal and healing. But no, that’s the role of the medium armored, no condi removal class, interesting.

Phenn.5167:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

This is the exact same Dev-philosophy spread all over the Necro forums, only using the buzzword “attrition” instead of “resilient” and “sustained damage.”

So which profession is supposed to be the attrition class? Ranger or Necro? Or both? At the moment, neither does the job well, if at all. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the game by its very nature does not support the “vision” for the class. It seems to me better to change the vision than attempt to force the profession into a preconceived expectation that’s incompatible with the game mechanics, as it were.

Also, the vocabulary sounds suspiciously PvP-centric, once again betraying a frustrating bias toward one particular game mode.

Well, I’m not quite as antagonistic as you, but I generally agree.
While I appreciate and support what the devs are trying to do with the Ranger and Nerco, I really don’t think they have accomplished this feat, not just yet.

I’ve already said what I think about this so far as the Ranger is concerned, but as to the Necro, if they had more Life Stealing and it was more prominent, that could work quite well as an attrition factor. It’s just currently it is so weak, and so completely outshined by burst dps as to be irrelevant.

However in both cases I can’t help but feel that the self heal skills and dodging mechanics just biting them in the backside again when it comes to this kind of play.
And again it might mean they might want to consider reworking Poison to become a more powerful counter to healing. It’s really just not that impressive atm.

Phenn.5167:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

This is the exact same Dev-philosophy spread all over the Necro forums, only using the buzzword “attrition” instead of “resilient” and “sustained damage.”

So which profession is supposed to be the attrition class? Ranger or Necro? Or both? At the moment, neither does the job well, if at all. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the game by its very nature does not support the “vision” for the class. It seems to me better to change the vision than attempt to force the profession into a preconceived expectation that’s incompatible with the game mechanics, as it were.

Also, the vocabulary sounds suspiciously PvP-centric, once again betraying a frustrating bias toward one particular game mode.

I think you’re being a bit disingenuous by saying that neither the Necro nor the Ranger do a good job executing what they were built for. The reality is, they do fill those roles quite well, the problem with the Ranger is, there isn’t enough options for sustained damage/survivability. The best builds have always emphasized the pet whilst the Ranger hangs back and plays the distraction. This should not be the case. The case should be that the Ranger can have builds that focus on his ability to deal damage.
So far the Ranger only has condition builds in that angle, it’s time they got some power builds and AoE damage.

Unfortunately this thread seems to have gotten partly hung up on sustain vs. burst and power creep discussion instead of exploring other ideas. Allie, would it be possible to provide a little direction to the discussion? Any ideas in the last 10 pages that you all think are interesting and we should explore further?

Blind Jimmy.1634:

Unfortunately this thread seems to have gotten partly hung up on sustain vs. burst and power creep discussion instead of exploring other ideas. Allie, would it be possible to provide a little direction to the discussion? Any ideas in the last 10 pages that you all think are interesting and we should explore further?

True, but she’s probably asleep right now.
We’d have a better chance of putting this thread back on track tomorrow.

Blind Jimmy.1634:

Unfortunately this thread seems to have gotten partly hung up on sustain vs. burst and power creep discussion instead of exploring other ideas. Allie, would it be possible to provide a little direction to the discussion? Any ideas in the last 10 pages that you all think are interesting and we should explore further?

Agree 100%. It’s not good when a Ranger CDI has posts with other classes talking about their problems.

Dirame.8521:

Phenn.5167:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

This is the exact same Dev-philosophy spread all over the Necro forums, only using the buzzword “attrition” instead of “resilient” and “sustained damage.”

So which profession is supposed to be the attrition class? Ranger or Necro? Or both? At the moment, neither does the job well, if at all. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the game by its very nature does not support the “vision” for the class. It seems to me better to change the vision than attempt to force the profession into a preconceived expectation that’s incompatible with the game mechanics, as it were.

Also, the vocabulary sounds suspiciously PvP-centric, once again betraying a frustrating bias toward one particular game mode.

I think you’re being a bit disingenuous by saying that neither the Necro nor the Ranger do a good job executing what they were built for. The reality is, they do fill those roles quite well, the problem with the Ranger is, there isn’t enough options for sustained damage/survivability. The best builds have always emphasized the pet whilst the Ranger hangs back and plays the distraction. This should not be the case. The case should be that the Ranger can have builds that focus on his ability to deal damage.
So far the Ranger only has condition builds in that angle, it’s time they got some power builds and AoE damage.

Not really trying to bring the Necro up in the Ranger thread. Only trying to point out that, no matter how often the Devs may repeat their “vision” for a class, the game itself tends to render that vision pointless.

I would love to see the Devs willingly address the incompatibility issues between their vision and game mechanics. And that’s fundamental to the discussion here—pet class and all. Even if PvP affords a better mechanic for an attrition-style Ranger to succeed, PvE will never.

The vision for the Ranger is great. And it’d work well. But only if the game rewarded the kind of gameplay that the Ranger presently excels at. Or if the game mechanics allowed pets to work. Or if the game mechanics didn’t turn ConD into a joke in PvE. Or if Defiant+TKO’s didn’t render all but spike DPS useless in PvE.

TL;DR – Sticking ardently to a pre-beta “vision” for the class may very well cause more harm than good.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

There’s a huge discrepancy in the theoretical design and the actual execution though because there’s far too many arbitrary choices made from the ground up.

You say rangers are suppose to sustain, if that’s the case, vigor should’ve never been nerfed on the class. How do you propose a class to have any sustain when they have less armor, hp, than the warrior but at the same time you give both classes the same number of base dodges? Not to mention there’s no gimmick like stealth/clones/ to carry you through.

Also why are only the sword and shortbow offering any sort of on demand build in evades? Even if you define sustain as just staying alive, which includes running away, the ranger can’t even do it as well as a warrior or ele, doubly so when there’s no proper cleanse for immobilize. It does not compute.

With Dark Souls II coming out in March, I implore your staff to check out that game and look at the checks and balances with their mechanics. That’s what’s missing from GW2.

In that game, armor choice matters, heavy being more damage absorbing, makes your stamina regen slower. Light armor offering better regen, more mobility, more and faster dodges at the expense of defense. Allocating more stats to stamina lets you dodge and attack more at the expense of lesser attack/hp/def etc. You also cannot spam attacks in that game as it’ll leave you without stamina which will prevent you from dodging, running or blocking when it’s out.

Armor and spec choices SHOULD matter. In a perfect game, you should be able to spec your toon however you wish to make it accomplish a goal. I feel the arbitrary choices that have been made thus far, not just within this class, is keeping the game from being improved.

Aridia.3042:

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

There’s a huge discrepancy in the theoretical design and the actual execution though because there’s far too many arbitrary choices made from the ground up.

You say rangers are suppose to sustain, if that’s the case, vigor should’ve never been nerfed on the class. How do you propose a class to have any sustain when they have less armor, hp, than the warrior but at the same time you give both classes the same number of base dodges? Not to mention there’s no gimmick like stealth/clones/ to carry you through.

Also why are only the sword and shortbow offering any sort of on demand build in evades? Even if you define sustain as just staying alive, which includes running away, the ranger can’t even do it as well as a warrior or ele, doubly so when there’s no proper cleanse for immobilize. It does not compute.

With Dark Souls II coming out in March, I implore your staff to check out that game and look at the checks and balances with their mechanics. That’s what’s missing from GW2.

In that game, armor choice matters, heavy being more damage absorbing, makes your stamina regen slower. Light armor offering better regen, more mobility, more and faster dodges at the expense of defense. Allocating more stats to stamina lets you dodge and attack more at the expense of lesser attack/hp/def etc. You also cannot spam attacks in that game as it’ll leave you without stamina which will prevent you from dodging, running or blocking when it’s out.

Armor and spec choices SHOULD matter. In a perfect game, you should be able to spec your toon however you wish to make it accomplish a goal. I feel the arbitrary choices that have been made thus far, not just within this class, is keeping the game from being improved.

Two points.
One, I think they should nerf Vigor since your shouldn’t be getting 100% up time from just one trait, but so long as you can do so from multiple sources of Vigor, I really don’t see a problem with it.

Two, I agree that armor class should matter, and it currently makes almost no difference at all. Heavy armor professions are often time just as mobile, sometime even more mobile then lighter armor professions.
They have the same level of DPS, and in the case of the Warrior, not so much the Guardian, equal ranged options as well. There really is no drawback.

So what is the benefit for having Medium or Light armor? I really don’t see it, your just weaker for the sake of being weaker, it makes not a single gameplay difference otherwise.

Maybe if the roll distance and speed was less for Heavier armor, or if gap closers and mobility options were not as prevalent, then maybe.

Specific Game Mode
PvE

Proposal Overview
Adding more movement on demand to the one-handed sword

Goal of Proposal
The current sword fight is very static and often doesn’t allow you to properly react to major threats, like large damage attacks from bosses, champions and the like. The goal is to give the player a higher level of command over how he wants to position himself during a fight.

Proposal Functionality
Skill chain #1:
- keep Slash as it is
- change functionality of Kick and Pounce
- Kick: rename, remove leap, animation change. Applies one second of immobilized.
- Pounce: rename, remove leap, animation change. Hits 3-5 adjacent foes, still applies might to pet per hit as it already does. Functionality should be similar to Cyclone Axe. Maybe even add a short whirl finisher. Due to Kick applying immobilized, a leap on Pounce is no longer necessary.

Result: You can now move with WASD while rotating through the #1 chain. You can now interrupt the #1 chain with dodges.

Skill chain #2:
- Hornet Sting: receives the full functionality and animation of Monarch’s leap
- Monarch’s Leap: rename to Hornet Swarm, change animation and functionality. Release a swarm of bees/hornets (animation already exists within the game) to surround yourself, similar to locust swarm, but with smaller radius and shorter duration. Damages up to 5 adjacent foes and applies vulnerability per hit.

Result: a leap forward to open a fight is a lot more beneficial in PvE scenarios than a leap backward. The latter always has the potential to put yourself into damage fields, to draw more unwanted foes or to outright jump over a cliff. This proposal solves that. The reworked Hornet Sting can still be used to quickly switch targets during combat and also offers a better leap finisher on demand.

Skill #3:
- good as it is. Maybe increase poison duration to 8 seconds.

Associated Risks
The proposal is basically an overhaul and may clash with ArenaNets current design philosophy of the 1h-sword. Two new animations for skill #1 and one new animation for skill #2 would have to be designed or borrowed from other skills within the game.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The Ranger isn’t expected to do burst damage. By sustained, we mean that the Ranger should excel at surviving (resilient) through burst while still doing enough damage over time to take the opponent down.

Allie Murdock.8152:

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.

Allie, thanks for this level of insight. Honestly, this type of information regarding the goals of the Dev team is what we need for a deep discussion of how to improve the class. Would you be willing to provide some additional insight to the design goals for the following?

PvE: As we all know, the current group PvE meta revolves around maximizing party DPS and active group defense (e.g. Aegis / reflects). What does the development team see as unique about the Ranger that would make groups want to take one? To contrast:

• Warrior – good offensive group buffs through banners / shouts
• Guard – good defensive group buffs (e.g. Aegis) and reflects
• Ele – lots of combo field / finisher potential, amazing boon stacking
• Mesmer – Time Warp & reflects

WvW Zerg: What does the Dev team see as the Ranger’s main role in a WvW Zerg situation? Rangers have a lack of AoE potential, and sustained single target damage is unlikely to make a large impact on a large scale PvP encounter, especially when the opposing team can quickly res any players you eventually down. What do you want Rangers to bring to the table such that a WvW commander may actually want more rangers in the zerg?

WvW Small scale / roaming: Given the apparent attrition theme from your quotes, how do you see Rangers keeping an opponent locked in a fight with them? By way of example, I can never beat a well-played Thief on my Ranger unless they get too greedy and stick around to fight too long. If the Thief is smart, he will always disengage and reset when he starts losing the attrition battle. Currently, an attrition class has to play perfectly over the course of several resets to have a chance of winning, whereas a burst class (e.g. Thief / Mesmer / Warrior) can lay down a burst combo, then just run away if the going gets rough.

tPvP: Actually, the attrition theme works pretty well in the point defense PvP modes. That’s probably one of the main reasons Rangers are seen as best off in this specific game mode.

Specific Mode
PVE

Proposal Overview
Most proposals seem to suggest profound changes to the class mechanism. IMHO, that would be problematic. The main problem of this class remains the reliance on her mostly unreliable Pet. To be specific, Ranger share almost half of her damage ability with her Pet, but the Pet inevitably die instantly in most situations. That gives player of notion of Ranger having lower damage capability than other classes.

Goal of Proposal

• Improve Pet survivability.
• Improve Pet ability to hit moving target.

Proposal Functionality

• The Pet Evades!: Pets are able to evade (yes, not dodge). The evasion happens when the ranger whistle alarm to the pet (using one of the mechanic bar slot). The pet have only ONE bar of stamina.
• Powerful F2: The F2 skill further offer additional offensive/defensive capabilities. E.g.: Bird’s F2 have evade animation; Bear’s F2 grant Protection…
• Dangerous Link: Offer a minor Master trait (or major Adept trait) allow pet to have evade animation when the Ranger dodge.
• Attack Like Jagger: Improve the pet’s ability to hit moving targets.

Associated Risks
None, since most of the changes are minor and affect the pet only. Additional balancing would be required though.

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.

There is no 1v1 situations in this game. If you nerf all the burst skills and remake the pet AI there is still no place for rangers (and i dont want to play 1v1. Its a massively multiplayer game or what)

clint.5681:

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.

The way this game is set up in pvp/wvw is that you want to down the opponent quickly as possible, especially so you avoid the chance of them calling in back up. Sustained doesn’t work for that.

Example:
You burst someone down to 30% in 5 seconds skills on cd for 15s, they heal to 60% you finish them off with second burst before they can heal again.

Sustained: you sustain them over 30 seconds they get to like 30% heal to 60% you sustain them and give them enough time to heal again because you took too long and now their buddy is there.

Sustain is a nonfactor outside of pve.

QFT.

Burst is what matters because you can’t out heal or out pot it. Doubly so when there’s no healer or hp pot in this game.

Sustain should never be taken into account for pvp balance. It’s a purely PVE concept, one that doesn’t particularly jive well with this game as pumping out consistent damage is a concept model for grinders, where people want to find the most efficient way to lvl a toon.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

phys.7689:

i dont mean what a ranger is in history, im saying in this game, its defined as a pet class. just like in this game mesmer is always going to be tied to illusions, and thief will always be tied to dual skills, stealth and steal.

The class mechanic is mainly what sets classes apart in this game. Everybody has support/tanks/ranged weapons etc, what really sets classes apart is how they go about doing it, and their class mechanics are a strong definer of that for most classes.

Im saying a lot of people like rangers/long range fighters in other games. but this ranger is actually defined more by its pets than by the fact it has ranged attacks or wilderness flavor.

so when people say they want ranger without the pet, they are kind of saying they want another class. Which im all for, but making ranger into not a pet class is essentially making a new class,

In contrast to other classes, the pet is not extending the gameplay (as much).
If you want to kill a mob, you go in and attack the mob, yor pet will probably do the same.
Without a pet, you would still go in and attack the mob. No difference there.
The only gameplay aspects that are tied to the pet are the shouts and the F2 skills, and both suck.
Another great “gameplay” aspect is keeping your pet alive, which isn’t any more satisfying.
As long as you don’t want to play beastmaster, you will be better off without a pet.
And that what I want to achieve. You can have your pet. But I don’t want it and I don’t want to be punished for not using it.

I think you and I are on the same page re: pet-stow buffing. We want the same thing there. We do differ however in that I think you will be punished for not using the pet whatever happens. The pet adds utility, gameplay difference and tactical options, more so than other class mechanics. You lose out by ignoring it in many circumstances. Of course it makes a huge difference to game enjoyment, when the player is the one making the choice of whether they lose out or not. If you exclusively play modes where the pet is perma-dead it won’t make any difference I suppose.

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.

(I also read your other posts after this one)

Rangers have alot of sources of DoT (Damage Over Time). In one sitting, I can use Hunters Call (or Barrage) first, switch weapons, then lay down a bonfire, then my traps go off, and my pet is also attacking at the same time I am. That is Awesome!

But, we are in a bad spot right now, as you and everyone says.

• Physical DoT can be negated very easily by dodging, blocking, becoming invulnerable, (any physical DoT), or just moving out of my field of view (hunters call is especially bad with this).
• Condition DoT is also not very powerful in almost all cases (in PvE and WvW atleast) because of the extremely easy access to condition removal that exists, and that condition damage stacks of bleeding, poison, etc. has an upper limit.
• It doesn’t matter that those powerful counters exist on cooldown, because all those powerful counters are seperate. A Guardian can dodge, then block, then become invulnerable, then remove the conditions, then heals, and still has more than enough burst damage to just destroy me. I’m normally dead before I can even get 25% of his life bar down. (in PvP, I hear its a different story, but I only play WvW and PvE)

• If you want Rangers to be good at DoT, then we need to be able to overwhelm the enemy with it until they run out of options and have no choice but to run away, not just still bursting us down, and enduring whatever we throw at them, no matter what we throw at them.
• while it works sometimes (Hunter’s call and Traps with sharpened edges almost never fails me), it fails to be useful in almost every other case.
• 90% of the time, we don’t have what it takes to overwhelm the enemy with DoT because there is too much counterplay to it currently.

• I’m not saying give Rangers more Burst damage, and make them the same as every other class (infact, I would argue take all of it away (as in remove the damage increases on our signets and give us something closer to what would be expected out of a DoT class, something that would enhance our damage over time, instead of hindering it))
• What I am saying, Ranger needs alot of work, not just on the DoT part, but also on the Resilient part. We need to be able to react and bounce back after taking high damage, or getting poked with alot of conditions. While our heals are quite good at that, nothing else is right now.

(I appologize for the wall of text, as some of it may have been repeated already)
Edit – I like using Damage Over Time, and I don’t like using the word Sustain because our ‘sustain’ has sometimes much longer cooldown than burst skills do. It ends up making zero difference between the two terms when sustain isn’t actually sustain at all, its just spread out damage.

(Chrispy Ideas, part 1)
Changing Healing Skills and Elite Skills for more synergy

• The Purpose of this idea(proposal) is to make Healing Skills benefit more from traits, like the healing skills of other professions do. Our healing skills are some of the best in the game, yes, but, the inability to make them stronger through traits actually makes them weaker than other healing skills in the long run.

Changes and Benefits
- Heal as One and Rampage as One should be changed into Shout skills, so they can benefit from the following ::

• Shout Mastery - Reduce Cooldown. (make skills faster to access)
• Nature’s Voice - Regen and Swiftness. (makes skills less selfish and Ranger/Pet only)
• Superior Rune of the Soldier - Shouts remove a Condition. (More chances for condition removal, which the Ranger badly needs anyways)

- Healing Spring should be changed into a Trap Skill, so it benefits from the Follwoing ::

• Trapper’s Expertise - Ground targeting and increased Radius. (Ability to affect a greater number of allies.)
• Trap Potency - decreased Cooldown. (Make skill faster to access)(increased condition duration would not affect this obviously, maybe increase boon duration as well?)

- Troll Unguent should be changed into a Survival Skill, so it benefits from this ::

• Wilderness Knowledge - Reduced Cooldown. (Faster Access and more healing uptime)

Risks

• There is a possibility that healing skills would be too dependent on trait investment.
• After investing into traits, skills could be too powerful and unbalanced.

Discussion

• I had the idea for the ‘As One and healing spring skills, because those are the two skill types they most closely match. While shouts aren’t exactly in the best spot right now because of how pets work, I think those changes would go a long way.
• For Troll Unguent, I figured that making it a Wilderness survival skill made the most sense, but, its up for debate if anyone’s willing.

• This also ties directly into a future idea I will be posting that involves expanding the Wilderness Survival traits and Shout traits we have access to, to atleast 3 of each, (I will link this post since the two are related)

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

Opening strike could be good, if it didn’t require a GM to make it re-proc after a kill. It’s useless unless you have thirty points, then it becomes good-ish. I’d just have it re-proc after ever kill on the first minor, then have upgrades through the line.

Or as you say, just rework it completely…..

Chrispy.5641:

(Chrispy Ideas, part 1)
Changing Healing Skills and Elite Skills for more synergy

• The Purpose of this idea(proposal) is to make Healing Skills benefit more from traits, like the healing skills of other professions do. Our healing skills are some of the best in the game, yes, but, the inability to make them stronger through traits actually makes them weaker than other healing skills in the long run.

Changes and Benefits
- Heal as One and Rampage as One should be changed into Shout skills, so they can benefit from the following ::

• Shout Mastery - Reduce Cooldown. (make skills faster to access)
• Nature’s Voice - Regen and Swiftness. (makes skills less selfish and Ranger/Pet only)
• Superior Rune of the Soldier - Shouts remove a Condition. (More chances for condition removal, which the Ranger badly needs anyways)

- Healing Spring should be changed into a Trap Skill, so it benefits from the Follwoing ::

• Trapper’s Expertise - Ground targeting and increased Radius. (Ability to affect a greater number of allies.)
• Trap Potency - decreased Cooldown. (Make skill faster to access)(increased condition duration would not affect this obviously, maybe increase boon duration as well?)

- Troll Unguent should be changed into a Survival Skill, so it benefits from this ::

• Wilderness Knowledge - Reduced Cooldown. (Faster Access and more healing uptime)

Risks

• There is a possibility that healing skills would be too dependent on trait investment.
• After investing into traits, skills could be too powerful and unbalanced.

Discussion

• I had the idea for the ‘As One and healing spring skills, because those are the two skill types they most closely match. While shouts aren’t exactly in the best spot right now because of how pets work, I think those changes would go a long way.
• For Troll Unguent, I figured that making it a Wilderness survival skill made the most sense, but, its up for debate if anyone’s willing.

• This also ties directly into a future idea I will be posting that involves expanding the Wilderness Survival traits and Shout traits we have access to, to atleast 3 of each, (I will link this post since the two are related)

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

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

Good concepts

So you guys want to nerf burst, but rangel stay as an 1v1 class. There is no 1v1 situations and warriors, guardians will rule. They have good sustained dmg and heavy armors to survive.