Guild Wars 2

wolfyrik.2017:

Permastow isn’t the same thing as getting rid of all pets. It would be an advantage to many players in certain environments and wouldn’t affect people like you at all. It wouldn’t harm your gameplay, it wouldn’t affect how you play, it wouldn’t prevent you from using the pet. It would only grant people the option of not using the pet, when the pet is a liability.

Risk: People expect rangers to stow their pets, thus playing with pets might be seen a lesser playstyle…

Jocksy.3415:

wolfyrik.2017:

Permastow isn’t the same thing as getting rid of all pets. It would be an advantage to many players in certain environments and wouldn’t affect people like you at all. It wouldn’t harm your gameplay, it wouldn’t affect how you play, it wouldn’t prevent you from using the pet. It would only grant people the option of not using the pet, when the pet is a liability.

Risk: People expect rangers to stow their pets, thus playing with pets might be seen a lesser playstyle…

If the beastmaster ranger is viable in dungeons and on the same damagetier as the non-pet zerker ranger, this wont be happening.

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Jocksy.3415:

wolfyrik.2017:

Permastow isn’t the same thing as getting rid of all pets. It would be an advantage to many players in certain environments and wouldn’t affect people like you at all. It wouldn’t harm your gameplay, it wouldn’t affect how you play, it wouldn’t prevent you from using the pet. It would only grant people the option of not using the pet, when the pet is a liability.

Risk: People expect rangers to stow their pets, thus playing with pets might be seen a lesser playstyle…

If the beastmaster ranger is viable in dungeons and on the same damagetier as the non-pet zerker ranger, this wont be happening.

Yup. Plus, this is true to all classes. Mesmers aren’t expected to go Shatter-build in dungeons even if they like it so much. And wouldn’t you agree that the Shatter-build is a deeper engagement in the class mechanic than the phantasm build?

Another example of a playstyle that isn’t highly engaging to the class mechanic would be the staff Ele in dungeons where you are expected to mostly be in fire. So, while class mechanic dependent builds are interesting or fun, it’s not an end-all baseline for everything.

Not a lot of classes are given the kind of variety of viable builds like the Guardian or Elementalist, even then they have to spec for one of the viable builds for PvE.

So, I’m not even sure if that can be classified as a “risk” per se.

What the Ranger needs is at least ONE viable build. Then from there, we can talk more about build diversities.

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Jocksy.3415:

wolfyrik.2017:

Permastow isn’t the same thing as getting rid of all pets. It would be an advantage to many players in certain environments and wouldn’t affect people like you at all. It wouldn’t harm your gameplay, it wouldn’t affect how you play, it wouldn’t prevent you from using the pet. It would only grant people the option of not using the pet, when the pet is a liability.

Risk: People expect rangers to stow their pets, thus playing with pets might be seen a lesser playstyle…

If the beastmaster ranger is viable in dungeons and on the same damagetier as the non-pet zerker ranger, this wont be happening.

So lets talk about making a pet ranger viable (I would prefer optimal) in dungeons.

What are the things that a good dungeon build does:

• Buffs the party.
  • Boons. In the form of DPS boons my Persisting Flames elementalist can give my party 50 seconds of Fury and 10 might stacks easily within seconds. On its own it can maintain permanent Fury with no effort and max might with a little effort.
  • Unique buffs. Warrior banners are minor investments that offer huge stat boosts (170 to two stats or one stat and 10% boon duration). These buffs are especially powerful because they are unique to those skills and they work outside of the Might cap. Class specific buffs like Spotter and Empower Allies fall into this category.

• Protects the party.
  • Boons. Aegis is great for protecting your party from a big boss attack. Hammer guardians are great for permanent protection. Stability can be a life saver during challenging dungeon runs (like TA paths or the graveling tunnels in AC).
  • Projectile Reflection/Absorption. Feedback is on almost every mesmer bar for good reason. Wall of Reflection and Shield of the Avenger are life savers in the harpy fractal. Many thieves slot Smoke Screen for this reason. The power level of this mechanic is especially evident when looking at Lupicus fights.
  • Condition cleanses. This one is less important in Speed Clears but cleansing conditions is incredibly useful in a party. Healing Spring is one of the best reasons to bring a ranger. Lots of warriors and guardians love to bring Soldier runes or Pure of Voice for this reason. It’s one of the reasons I love staff elementalists and Healing Rain.
  • Blinds the enemy. Black Powder is incredibly powerful in a dungeon.

• Plays the combo game.
  • Combo fields are great for compelling group play.
  • Blast finishers are also incredibly useful (other finishers are less useful).

• Does damage. You still have to kill the enemy.

So which of these things do pets do:

• Gives boons:
  • Red Moa gives fury, Blue Moa gives protection, Jungle Stalker gives might, Fern Hound gives regeneration, the bird family gives swiftness and there is a trait for Vigor. Most of the skills that give these boons are somewhat weak in power level and don’t suit an F2 skill imo (bird and the Vigor trait are not F2).
• Cleanses conditions:
  • Unless you count the trait (which only cleanses the ranger) only the brown bear cleanses conditions from your party.
• Plays the combo game:
  • Only spiders have a land combo field and it’s a very short duration poison one.
  • Only drakes have a blast finisher.
  • Most other pet finishers are either projectiles or leaps which only help the pet.

I think giving more ways for pets to be useful party members would make them more desirable. Part of this could be done by giving them the skills and traits to buff the party, part of it could be done through giving them better F2 skills (this would also be skill based – a hawk that creates Swirling Winds on it’s location is only useful if the ranger activates it when it’s in the right location, or an eagle that creates a blind field on its location) that change the battlefield.

Honestly, this has become one of the more disappointing CDIs since the project began. I understand the devs are “reading through every post,” but the concept of collaboration necessitates, well, collaboration.

As many have already said, without any sort of direction from the devs (not just community orchestrators, but those who can actually make things happen for the Ranger), this thread devolves into a prettily-formatted wishlist—of which the Ranger subforum is already full.

Those posting here deserve:

• Feedback on their ideas—what part of the profession can be changed? What areas areas are a waste of time discussing for now?
• Open discussion about the state of the Ranger in the present iteration of the game—not some idyllic future conceptualization.
• Frank conversation about the stark differences between PvP and PvE and how “balance” in one dramatically affects the other.

Until true collaboration takes place here, I worry that the initiative is failing.

Shiren.9532:

• Plays the combo game:
  • Only spiders have a land combo field and it’s a very short duration poison one.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Poison_Cloud_

Other than that, I agree with everything you said.

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

Game Mode
WvW

Proposal overview

Make signets apply active effects to player by default; allow Signet of Beastmaster trait to apply active effects to team mates.

Goal of Proposal

Currently rangers have very little group/team utility for large and medium scale fights. This change will build diversity and group utility for rangers.

Proposal Functionality

1. All signets will apply active effects to ranger by default
2. Change range of all active effects to 1200—currently active effects like Signet of Renewal are very unreliable because the pet, if you are using it as intended, is often out of range. This is especially true in group fights.
3. Signet of Beastmaster applies active signet effects to allies
4. change the following signet active effects for balance and to maintain signet oriented themes
a. Signet of Hunt active—3 seconds of quickness; increase CD to 45 seconds.
b. Signet of Stone active—6 seconds of protection
c. Reduce CD for Signet of Restoration to 45 seconds and make active remove only 3 conditions.

Associated Risk

Some signets in current form would be overpowered if made to applies to allies (e.g., Signet of Stone). These would need to be tweaked as per suggestions above.

Another risk is that the ranger comes to replace and surpass the role of other classes that provide group wide buffs.

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Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Right now, we are forced to use a pet.

I don’t want to be forced to use this poor guy. I don’t hate it, but realistically speaking, it provides very little to no use (outside of using F2 skill every 30 secs or so), the pet brings nothing to the table.

Sure he can draw aggro if you have absolutely no heavies in your party. The pets get downed in 5 secs unless fully specced lol

None the less, this still does not make pet an intriguing option to me…

I’m reduced to ~30% damage and for what? absolutely nothing.
Give me back my 100% dps. the pet is absolutely useless in its current state and does not make a single class say :
“o crap, theres a stalker, i have to kill it first before he starts causing me trouble”

Specific Game Mode
PvP

Proposal Overview
Hunters Shot turns into a second skill when it’s been landed.

Goal of Proposal
Make it more viable in PvP/WvW

Proposal Functionality
When Hunter’s Shot has successfully landed and the Ranger is Stealthed, the skill becomes ’Hunter’s Prey’ which allows you to transfer your stealth boon to your pet for a surprise attack. Stealth would then be removed from the Ranger.

Associated Risks
None that I can think of.

My other propositions – All under 200 words:
Master’s Bond Fix
Main Hand Axe 1-3 Triple Threat Idea

@Shiren, tnx for this elaboration… I agree with everything you said, ‘but’ would like to add one thing to it reliability

And that Segway’s into one of the things I wanted to address here, and that is something I would like the Dev’s to consider. In objective (as much as possible anyways) analysis, the ranger has a lot of functionalities build in, and I doubt many other rangers would disagree with that (even though Shiren and other suggestions in this thread show that there are places on the ranger where it could improve, for specific ‘game format’ needs). But even those eventually stand or fall with how reliable the options are for the ranger, and/or the amount of control we have over the reliability.

f/e, the recharge time on pet swap in battle, it is a reliable way to get your pet out of a telegraphed boss skill. But as you swap out your pet ‘no1’ choice, you are then hindered after the skill is over, and have to wait for the swap to come off cool-down to get back to your game plan. And to make this matter somewhat worse, there is no real guarantee that the swapped in pet will survive. And a similar thing resides in the spirits…

And I think this is one of the underlying issues with the Ranger, and I have seen a lot of suggestions that mainly revolve around that reliability. I were to argue that ‘reliability’ could be a trade off, if the effects are strong enough to warrant a way to reliably get rid of the effects (for the opponent that is). But as Shiren points out in regards to the pets, and others have done for the spirits, their effects aren’t that overwhelming. And (criticising my own through train) the question remains if a higher ‘reward’ will actually do something for reliability. Currently there is hardly any attention to pets/spirits from foes, they will just die easily in the AE fray. But if the ‘rewards’ get upped, they will just become an easily dealt with ‘priority thread’. And as such, still not provide a reliable way to help the ranger improve…

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

+1. Wholeheartedly agree

Pets are useless and if anet still has some strange misguided love for pets and don’t want to delete them, than at least give rangers back 100% DPS.

Pets suck. I don’t care if you like them or not, but you can’t argue the fact they really are useless in 95% of this game. I don’t think any amount of “number tweaks” will change that about pets. They need an absolute overhaul and if anet doesn’t want to give us an overhaul, then its pointless. Get rid of this useless mechanic

Anet, please make a poll on deleting this worthless mechanic. I guarantee you ncsoft DOES NOT want to spend time just fixing something so broke it could take months to overhaul.

In fact, i don’t care what you do as long you give back rangers 100% of the DPS. Disable pets for all I care if that has to happen, but right now, rangers are behind in EVERY category

Proposal Overview
Improve certain weapon skills, traits, and utilities/elites. ( I am very biased )

Goal of Proposal
QoL improvements. Creation of viability. Build variety. Overall viability for longbow rangers and zerker builds.

Proposal Functionality

Longbow

1) Long Range Shot – Remove the damage per range requirement and make it do the same damage at all distances. Instead make it so each range segment now applies 1-3 seconds of Fury, this will make it keep perma fury if you spam 1 at max distance and land every attack. Also when you enter stealth this ability becomes Snipe: 2 second standstill cast that pierces all enemies and does double the damage of long ranged shot, 12 second cd and can be continued out of stealth, therefor if you cast it with .5 secs on stealth left, you continue to cast it even after stealth is removed. The force of this attack Knocks enemies back by 400 units.

2) Rapid Fire – Shoot 3 high powered arrows swiftly at the target applying 5 stacks of vulnerability per arrow. Channeled cast time is 1.5 seconds, same cd, each arrow does approximately 33% of the total damage the Current version does.

3) Hunters Shot – The damage from this attack has been removed, this attack now applies stealth when the arrow is released from the bow, in addition if the arrow hits the target roots the target for 2 seconds and grants 5 seconds of swiftness. This syncs well with my idea for snipe without it being op.

4) Point-Blank Shot – This attack now also applies 5 seconds of cripple if the arrow lands.

5) Barrage – Barrage now roots for 2 seconds with the first arrow to anyone it hits. In addition, its damage has been increased by 25%. This will cause people to cry op but its long cd and cast time and overall mechanic prevents it from being op. Also, its current damage is solid but when you see people standing in your aoe because it doesnt hurt enough to move out of, its an issue. Ele aoe does twice the damage, same with necros, pretty much every class does more dangerous aoe damage.

Greatsword

Maul – This needs a bit more range, Id say increase its range to 300-400, why? Because its too easy to dodge due to telegraphed animation, and too easy to accidentally walk away from due to short range. It needs its range increased, but everything else is fine imo.

Specific Game Mode PvP

-Traits

Marksmanship

Major

1) Piercing Arrows – This needs to be equal to warriors crack shot and be combined with Quick Draw.

2) Eagle Eye – This skill increases longbow damage by 10% and range by 300. In addition, every critical hit has a 33% chance to grant might for 7 seconds, stacks with boon duration. I liked this idea personally.

3) Read The Wind – This trait now replaces Signet Of The Beastmaster which has been removed from the game. Increases arrow travel speed by 25%, and increases the range of Long Range Shot by an additional 300 units. They could also make this trait remove the range requirement to LRS and add the 1-3 secs of fury idea if they dont wanna rework the skill.

Skirmishing

1) Misplaced Traits – Trap traits need to be put into wilderness survival, and be replaced with the current wilderness survival traits Shared Anguish, Hide In Plain Sight, and Martial Mastery. In my opinion they just seem like skirmishing traits and allows melee rangers the option and reason to go into the Skirmishing line.

2) Pets Prowess – This might be OP but Id love it to be renamed Pack Prowess and make it so you and your pet do 30% more critical damage. That way the trait isnt worthless if your pet dies, or if you decide to choose a non burst pet and go for CC pets like spiders.

3) Moment Of Clarity – Increase the damage % too 200% and stacks with attack of opportunity. Seen this on what might be fake patch notes but really liked it, I hope this is implemented.

Tail Wind, and Furious Grip – Increase boon duration to 9 seconds, stacks with boon duration increases.

Utilities and Elites

Signets – Signets now affect player and pet without any trait needed.

Muddy Terrain – Now has a combo field added to it called Earth Field, each field combo hit applies 1 stack of vulnerability to the target.

Specific Game Mode PvP

New Utilities – Preparations – Incendiary Arrows – Your next 5 attacks cause 1 second of burning and Explode for 300 fire damage in a radius of 400 units. Poison Arrows – Your next 5 attacks poison the target for 3 seconds. Glass Arrows – Your next 5 attacks do 25% more damage and cannot be blocked. Melandru’s Arrows – Your next 5 attacks deal 5% more damage per boon on the target. Alot of people would cry op on this because it could end up adding 30-40% more damage for the next 5 attacks, however, thats only if they have a huge amounts of boons on, and almost every class has ways to increase damage per boon, strip boons, or do straight damage depending on amount of boons except ranger. I think this would make us deadly against players who are boon happy. These could be elites, but I feel like they would be incredible utilities and would give us great options to take over signets which if you take wild, and hunt, increase our damage output by 25% for 8 seconds or 50% for the next attack, which is huge.

New Elite – Strike As One – For the next 20 seconds you and your pets next 2 attacks do 100% more damage and have 100% critical strike chance. Has a 90 second cd and is an elite stance for ranger. I think this would offer incredible potential to power rangers due to it being an elite stance that cannot be stripped. And with the ranger lacking any huge burst skills other than Maul, and if implemented, snipe, it wouldnt break anything and would offer a viable alternative to Rangers current elites. Many wouldnt even take this over Rampage as one due to the might stack and stability aspect of it. But it would allow burst potential for the ranger as a class without actually reworking the entire class.

Pets – AI clearly needs to be fixed, and pathing needs to be added, I dont like having to take a ranged pet because my wolf cant jump down a short wall. Also Id like pets damage to be based on the players stacks. Or implement the Hearty, Elder, Or Dire Option again, also changing size due to whichever option they choose. This would allow rangers to use ranged pets as damage options instead of being forced into cats or birds.

thefantasticg.3984:

Prysin.8542:

thefantasticg.3984:

Still interested to know what Devs roll a Ranger main and how many hours they have them.

Does Allie roll a Ranger? How many hours on it if so?

There is two devs that roll ranger, mostly in sPvP and they roll spirits.

Go visit SPVP forums, there was a thread there called “What builds does the Devs use?”

Yeah, I did, but I don’t remember if they said they main them… And, I don’t much care for sPVP. Needs of sPVP are going to be different than my needs in PVE/Dungeons… That being said I want to know if the PR person we are dealing with for this CDI knows anything about playing Ranger in any game mode… and if not, can we get someone in here like a Dev that actually plays a Ranger more than a few hours.

I think you’re missing something: it doesen’t matter if you play sPvP or not. Balancing PvP builds is the core of the game due to the fact that you have far less options to boost or balance your stats; I’ll explain better: when you create a PvP build you have very limited options since you have only amulets and runes to balance your stats (you don’t have any stat on weapons and armor, you can’t use accessories and rings) so you should be very careful to the trait lines you’re picking.
In conclusion, if a build is viable in sPvP than 90% of the times it will be viable in WvW as well (I’m not thinking about PvE since you just have to go full zerker and you’re fine with very little exeptions: the balance here should begin from a complete rework of bosses, dungeon mechanics and damages in general in order to change something).

I’m not stating that PvP is better than any other game mode, not at all, but I do think that we (both players and devs) should focus on balancing PvP because it influences the whole game. Many builds first came out in PvP and then took place in WvW as well (but not the contrary).

CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

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CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

I like how CrossFire’s post got deleted yet it speaks the truth.

I guess I just don’t understand why ANet is so fixated on keeping the pet mechanic. I mean, where is the logic behind trying to fix a broken class while at the same time remaining adamant that the very thing that is breaking it needs to stay?

So many interesting, innovative ideas have been suggested so far and all ANet has given us in the past few days is a post about signets. I’d love to see Ranger become the class that it should have been, but I can’t help but feel that the devs are being too narrow-minded.

Flytrap.8075:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

I like how CrossFire’s post got deleted yet it speaks the truth.

I guess I just don’t understand why ANet is so fixated on keeping the pet mechanic. I mean, where is the logic behind trying to fix a broken class while at the same time remaining adamant that the very thing that is breaking it needs to stay?

So many interesting, innovative ideas have been suggested so far and all ANet has given us in the past few days is a post about signets. I’d love to see Ranger become the class that it should have been, but I can’t help but feel that the devs are being too narrow-minded.

It’s honestly more to blame with NCsoft since they command anet on how to spend their resources in terms of development.

I guess an entire broken class is OK with them so long as the others are somewhat stable

Dave Pare.2069:

thefantasticg.3984:

Prysin.8542:

thefantasticg.3984:

Still interested to know what Devs roll a Ranger main and how many hours they have them.

Does Allie roll a Ranger? How many hours on it if so?

There is two devs that roll ranger, mostly in sPvP and they roll spirits.

Go visit SPVP forums, there was a thread there called “What builds does the Devs use?”

Yeah, I did, but I don’t remember if they said they main them… And, I don’t much care for sPVP. Needs of sPVP are going to be different than my needs in PVE/Dungeons… That being said I want to know if the PR person we are dealing with for this CDI knows anything about playing Ranger in any game mode… and if not, can we get someone in here like a Dev that actually plays a Ranger more than a few hours.

I think you’re missing something: it doesen’t matter if you play sPvP or not. Balancing PvP builds is the core of the game due to the fact that you have far less options to boost or balance your stats; I’ll explain better: when you create a PvP build you have very limited options since you have only amulets and runes to balance your stats (you don’t have any stat on weapons and armor, you can’t use accessories and rings) so you should be very careful to the trait lines you’re picking.
In conclusion, if a build is viable in sPvP than 90% of the times it will be viable in WvW as well (I’m not thinking about PvE since you just have to go full zerker and you’re fine with very little exeptions: the balance here should begin from a complete rework of bosses, dungeon mechanics and damages in general in order to change something).

I’m not stating that PvP is better than any other game mode, not at all, but I do think that we (both players and devs) should focus on balancing PvP because it influences the whole game. Many builds first came out in PvP and then took place in WvW as well (but not the contrary).

Sadly a lot of those PVP balancing bits have ruined a lot of things I liked about my Ranger. I’m not going to bother to go back through a list them. Anybody who has been paying attention to the notes and playing for the last year knows what I’m talking about. That being said, I’m not bring a spirit build into any PVE/Dungeon situation, ever. But that is the meta right now for Rangers, right? Or was? I don’t pay too much attention. They need 100% split so they can balance them seperately so I can stop having my playstyle on my characters infringed on in one way or another. And yes, zerker gear for PVE, but just important are the traits and if they’re getting farked over by PVP balancing something needs to be done to separate them so I can effectively run dungeons on my Ranger.

SkiTz.4590:

Flytrap.8075:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

I like how CrossFire’s post got deleted yet it speaks the truth.

I guess I just don’t understand why ANet is so fixated on keeping the pet mechanic. I mean, where is the logic behind trying to fix a broken class while at the same time remaining adamant that the very thing that is breaking it needs to stay?

So many interesting, innovative ideas have been suggested so far and all ANet has given us in the past few days is a post about signets. I’d love to see Ranger become the class that it should have been, but I can’t help but feel that the devs are being too narrow-minded.

It’s honestly more to blame with NCsoft since they command anet on how to spend their resources in terms of development.

I guess an entire broken class is OK with them so long as the others are somewhat stable

Maybe.

And to clarify, if they can make the pet mechanic work, then by all means keep it. But coming into this thread and essentially admitting that the pet mechanic as it stands has issues, that you don’t have the capabilities to fix it, and that you don’t have any current plans to change it is not acceptable.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Band-Aid buffs will not fix the Ranger profession. If ANet is serious about solving the issues that have plagued this class since before the game was released, then they need to take a completely different approach.

Specific Game Mode
PvP

Proposal Overview
Poison Volley is now Poison Slash

Goal of Proposal
Make it more viable in PvP/WvW

Proposal Functionality
The ranger Leaps forward slashing his bow in a 120 degree arc causing cleave damage and 5 seconds of poison. Kind of like Eviscerate animation.

Associated Risks
The Ranger becomes vulnerable in melee range but can combo it off by using Quick Shot

My other propositions – All under 200 words:
Master’s Bond Fix
Main Hand Axe 1-3 Triple Threat Idea
Hunter’s Shot/Hunter’s Prey Change

Flytrap.8075:

SkiTz.4590:

Flytrap.8075:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

I like how CrossFire’s post got deleted yet it speaks the truth.

I guess I just don’t understand why ANet is so fixated on keeping the pet mechanic. I mean, where is the logic behind trying to fix a broken class while at the same time remaining adamant that the very thing that is breaking it needs to stay?

So many interesting, innovative ideas have been suggested so far and all ANet has given us in the past few days is a post about signets. I’d love to see Ranger become the class that it should have been, but I can’t help but feel that the devs are being too narrow-minded.

It’s honestly more to blame with NCsoft since they command anet on how to spend their resources in terms of development.

I guess an entire broken class is OK with them so long as the others are somewhat stable

Maybe.

And to clarify, if they can make the pet mechanic work, then by all means keep it. But coming into this thread and essentially admitting that the pet mechanic as it stands has issues, that you don’t have the capabilities to fix it, and that you don’t have any current plans to change it is not acceptable.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Band-Aid buffs will not fix the Ranger profession. If ANet is serious about solving the issues that have plagued this class since before the game was released, then they need to take a completely different approach.

You ever watch those Debbie Downer episodes? You remind me of a few of them…

SkiTz.4590:

Flytrap.8075:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

CrossFire.8037:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Abrilete.1439:

Regarding the 30% DPS lost becasuse our pets never hit…
It’s been tested by several players that the “30% faster pets trait” (Agility Training) helps a lot improving pet’s DPS.

Giving our pets that speed increase by default, and also increasing the range for their mele attacks, could be an easy-to-implement patch until ANet decides to fix pet’s AI.

Doesn’t make the pet any better.

At least, they would hit more consistently against moving targets (be it players or NPC’s). ANet has said many times that they don’t plan to fix pet’s AI soon, so until then (if they ever do, and I don’t think so) we must find ways to make them work within current constraints.

Delete them. If they can’t fix them I want them deleted.

But but…rangers are the pet class…even though the pet mechanic is broken, unreliable and an actual hindrance in most game modes, the pets must stay because we need a pet class! /anet

It’s pathetic at this point. If you want to stick with pets, either fix them or allow them to become an option through a beast-master trait.

Minor Trait: “You get a pet.”

I like how CrossFire’s post got deleted yet it speaks the truth.

I guess I just don’t understand why ANet is so fixated on keeping the pet mechanic. I mean, where is the logic behind trying to fix a broken class while at the same time remaining adamant that the very thing that is breaking it needs to stay?

So many interesting, innovative ideas have been suggested so far and all ANet has given us in the past few days is a post about signets. I’d love to see Ranger become the class that it should have been, but I can’t help but feel that the devs are being too narrow-minded.

It’s honestly more to blame with NCsoft since they command anet on how to spend their resources in terms of development.

I guess an entire broken class is OK with them so long as the others are somewhat stable

Not saying Anet/NCSoft work that way, but most companies will work from stats to know what needs work.
One weapon is never used? It needs fix. One class is never played? Lets work on it. One build is never/always used? let’s see how make others more desirable…

As long as rangers is the most played profession, in a system that uses statistics to know what to work on, rangers will hardly get the needed fix…

Can we please leave the ‘Pet, No pet’ discussion out of this, if you want to argue about it, I think this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/NOT-the-CDI-Ranger-Aspects-an-alternative/first#post3701028 is currently the place to debate both stances. And I would hope this to be done in a constructive manner. Instead of focussing on a divide in ranks, which only weakens our common cause, we should stick together… In my views this means a solution where both sides can have what they want, mainly a no-pet option that still weaves in the Pet with the class, while at the same time a continued collaborate stressing of improved Pet (but perhaps more important, Creature) AI …

The improved creature AI can benefit the whole game, and it will benefit the Pet, Pointing this out as a front might well give Anet the incentive to improve Creature AI and Pet AI as a consequence, which makes the spending of resources cut on both sides. Smarter creatures make for more interesting gameplay, it could improve all ‘minion’ behaviour and it could improve the pet. I were to figure we can all stand behind this…

At the same time, as things stand now, ‘we’ do need a solution to where pets don’t function as intended. And we need to do it within the constraints of accepting that pets (in some way) are still a defining feature of the Ranger. This doesn’t necessarily mean there has to be a active pet ‘out’ all the time. But as I see people argue they want their 100% DPS. I can not but wonder if it would be WAY MORE INTERESTING, if we could strengthen our stats by selecting a pet-family. Increased strength in a ‘pet stored mechanism’ doesn’t necessarily have to mean more ‘DPS’. All the pet families offer a distinct stat. setup, and it may well be interesting to benefit from THIS setup when we store a certain pet.

As far as ‘I want a pet period’ people go, I would urge them to stand behind those that want a solution outside of improved Pets (because it is fair as a trade off of all those that will stand behind ‘you’ for improved AI). And instead of dismissing the idea of a stowed pet, try and work with the idea. Do not dismiss an alternative because it may not be what ‘you’ want, but work with it in a sense that the pet keeps playing an integral part of a stow solution. That there is an easy accessible way to get the pet out, as part of the stow mechanic, and perhaps an ‘as easy’ way to ‘store’ it, so it can be used as a protection mechanic for the pet. or anything else you would want as a pet person if the tables were turned on you, and the pets would just have been a choice option.

Going up against each other as seems to happen now, does nothing but divide us, it brings down the discussion to a yes/no-trenchwar, and for that it doesn’t help ANet in making up their minds (Do we do A or B, and disappoint the yes or the no). I think they should do A & B, and please the yes and no… and do it in such a way that stowing a pet is as much an integral part of the Ranger as is getting it out, where a the choice for a certain pet (stowed or out in the open) is as defining for your gameplay as the choice of a pet is (where it to function as intended) now….

Even if the Pet’s where fixed to hit their targets reliably, the ranger will still be at a disadvantage in WvW during Keep Defense/Offense. Pet’s do not scale up or down walls, they use to, but Anet put a stop to that. Not even our birds will fly up or down a keep wall to attack it’s target. So during these situations, Ranger’s are producing 30% less damage then what they are suppose to be doing. Even with Pet AI fixed, we will still have this disadvantage. The best option so far is permastow, where the ranger can gain 100% of his damage if he put’s his pet away. For those who want to keep the pet, they can keep the pet, no one will take it away from you, (no pun intended off of Obama’s lies).

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that pet’s should be removed from the game because they don’t work and Anet already stated that they will NOT be fixing the pet. But to make those that like to turn their ranger’s into beastmaster’s (should be considered a crime), this option will allow them to continue playing as a beastmaster. Those who wish to play the ranger as a ranger, will now have the option to do so. And Anet get’s to keep their dignity by not removing the pet from their narrow minded view of the class. It’s a win win win situation I think. And it should be fairly easy to implement and not many traits will have to be touched since pet’s are still in the game.

Flytrap.8075:

What I got from this thread so far:

Players – Please fix the pet mechanic.

ANet – We can’t.

Players – Then please give us a new class mechanic.

ANet – We won’t.

This is sigworthy….sadly.

DarksunG.9537:

I find Rangers pets to be boring, unresponsive, little/no functionality, impersonal & nothing new or interesting. I love the idea of a class based on a real pet, but they need to be more customizable (visually), they need to work WITH my ranger, they need to be reliable (in terms of how they follow, act & react)& they need to be different than other games. They should stand out. They currently are a lesser version of wow pets.

I approve of this whole suggestion, but highlighting this. Mechanics are very important, but the emotional aspect of the pet simply isn’t there right now either, and I think that’s important to a pet class. Ideally, rangers shouldn’t just think their pets are useful, but have enough of an illusion to personify them and make them part of their character.

Ive to agree with Flytrap.
Band Aid Fixes won’t change anything.

• Pets need the most redesign, because they are the most integral part of the whole gameplay concept of the rangers, which shouldn’t get changed as much as possible, but needs some significant tweaks to make the mechanics run smoother and allow at the same time the ranger more tactical and strategiacal gameplay with the pets the player uses, as also mor synergestic with the pets in form of symbiosis skills that are from Pet/Ranger Combinition to Pet/Ranger Combinition very different, so that each and every single different pet has its important roles – strenghts and weaknesses that can define a multitude of different builds for the ranger.

• Pets need passive Effects when they are called away. This adds a very important tactical feature to the Ranger Class. However Pets should become unitats with Downed Modes also, therefore the importancy of Pets as Damage Dealers needs to get reduced and the Power of Ranger Skills on the other and needs to get compensated.
  Something along the lines like make pets 20-25% weaker and make the Ranger therefore 20-25% stronger in most of their impactful skills.

• Rangers have too much Power Weapons. They are the Jack of All Trades. A Jack of All Trades needs also to have Hybrid Style Weapons with skilsl, that are useful for Condi Builds but also Power Build with Weapon Skill, that offer for both Build Types something. Greatsword is a perfect candidate for that as like also the Axes.
  GW2 needs with Ranger and Mesmer some Greatsword Classes, that are better with that weapon with Conditions, while Warrior and Guardian should be better with Greatswords for Power, what makes imo clearly sense, because they are SOLDIERS and should have a clear complete different type of combat style with creatswords, than Rangers/Mesmers that would fit better for them to deal sustain damage over time and to punish more enemy movement and bad positioning, thats why my Skill Suggestions were more about making the ranger with certain weapons more similar to the current toxic alliance archer enemies, which are with their builds really a pain in the * sometimes, due to alot of Torment, what would be here for some weapons a great option to improve the Ranger.

• Alot of Traits need to be merged or removed and replaced with more useful traits.
  Also alot of them would be fitting better in different Trait Lines or different Trait Tiers.
  Rangers need to become finally the best class when it comes down to ranged combat when using Longbows and Shortbows to make.
  Max Range of the Bow Weapons needs to get increased for all classes finally back to inherent 1200/1500. Weapons with inherent lower range, like Pistols and Rifles therefore should compensate that with slightly more damage and inherent piercing attacks due to their shots having more power on short distances, than shot arrows.
  Bows need to have a different Risk/Reward relationships, than Pistols/Rifles for classes, that can use these weapons over bows.

As a Thief, who can use Pistols and Shortbows for example, both weapons need to have different ranges. Shortbow with 1200 range and its weaker hits and Pistols with their 900 Range and their strogner piercing hits and et voila, you have set up different Risk/Reward values for both settings. The same way it has to work for all the other Weapons of the Ranger.

Axes are a short ranged throwing weapon for Rangers as they use them like Tomahawks, thus the risk playign with axes is bigger, therefore the damage of axes should be bigger, than a Ranger that uses a Shortbow and has with it a range of 1200, playing safer, but with its weaker hits it should feel slightly lesser rewarding, than if you kill something more efficiently with axes that deal more damage, therefore that at a 900er range risks are much greater for you to take alot of hits too.

I didn’t suggest to revert back the range changes out of pure fun, theres alot of thought behind it, why its important for the whole balance of the game and not just only Rangers, why its important for all classes, that max range for weapons needs to get adjusted back to be what it was for SB and LB, what it was over a year ago.

The game should increase the maximum range of ranged weapons, if you shoot at somebody from a higher place.
attacking people in WvW from higher places needs to become finally a strategical advantage, because the projectiles can fly alot longer in the sky and will reach due to this distances which are alot further away, than normal.

Specific Game Mode
All Aspects of the game

Proposal Overview
Rework of the Pet system(Impossible to explain in under 200 words btw)

Goal of Proposal
Make it more viable in PvP/WvW/PvE

Proposal Functionality
Take out Passive and Attack modes. Add a “Guard mode” and a “Attack mode”.

• Guard Mode
• When the Ranger puts his pet in “Guard Mode”, the pet will stay by the rangers side, granting various ‘Guard and protect your master’ type of boons or traps that aid in protecting the Ranger(dependent on pet class-Ursine, cats etc). Example, lets say I have a Bird slotted and is in Guard Mode, I want him to grant me swiftness or maybe fury when an enemy comes within “Guard Mode” range. Or let’s say I have my Reptile slotted and in Guard Mode, if an enemy comes withing guard mode range I want him to cast Confusion or even do his tail swipe. All the guard mode abilities are dependent on the pet class. Also in Guard mode, the Ranger will do 15% more damage, but the pet will do 15% less damage as well.

• Attack Mode
• When the Ranger puts the pet in “Attack Mode” it simply uses there normal attacks and skills but with improved precision and accuracy. Improved AI etc.

Associated Risks
The Ranger will now have more control over the pet and which skills are activated through the pet.

My other propositions – All under 200 words:
Master’s Bond Fix
Main Hand Axe 1-3 Triple Threat Idea
Hunter’s Shot/Hunter’s Prey Change
Poison Volley Changed to Poison Slash

Phenn.5167:

Until true collaboration takes place here, I worry that the initiative is failing.

They have “collorated” by saying the pet is here to stay, and work within that context. Yet so many posts to complain they dont want pet and ask for stowing.

Cant collorate with people that dont listen, what do you expect from them?

been thinking that rangers need a redistribution in power. give rangers CC/condi for all weapon skills and have only 1 of each where all the damages go into (maul for GS, perhaps remove auto attack and make LB a chargeble attack rooting the player down).

increase utility. make rangers a partial guard because reliance on nature to give boons, or giving boons to pets to allow the lil one to make the finishing blow. should be interesting, maybe give rangers more weapon choices, hammer and shield should be okay.

Kilger.5490:

Phenn.5167:

Until true collaboration takes place here, I worry that the initiative is failing.

They have “collorated” by saying the pet is here to stay, and work within that context. Yet so many posts to complain they dont want pet and ask for stowing.

Cant collorate with people that dont listen, what do you expect from them?

There have been numerous suggestions in this thread with ideas to work around the problems pets currently face. I’d even say we’ve discussed the pet issue enough and we should move on to other topics. Hard to steer the discussion without input from ANet though.

We still have terrible traits, terrible weapons, terrible utility skills, boring gameplay, no worth in WvW, and overall no real direction for the class to discuss. Do you have a suggestion on which topic you’d like to discuss while we wait for direction from ANet?

Give us control of all of the pet abilities with no delay.

Mostly what I am taking out of this thread is that the bows need work as well as the pets. Traits need to see some buffs as well. Signets are not implemented well as it pertains to what you have to do with your traits in order to get an efficacious effect from them.

When the game started the Ranger was my main and I enjoyed it. Enjoyed it in PvP too. I went back to playing it a few days ago because of this thread. I am still of the mind that if we have to have pets then Beast Mastery needs an overhaul . I would offer suggestions but I think there have been a lot of really cool things that address it in here. If pets are so integral to the class design, why is the cool down on swapping pets so severe? Engies have zero cool down really on kits and Eles Attunement swapping seems fair in relation to pet swapping.

I have always felt the pet should be an extension of the Ranger, not a separate entity if we go by the design pillar that pets are integral to the class. If my pet is my weapon, then the AI needs a rework because the things those little guys do in AoE is a design flaw of the pet plain and simple.

This stuff is really just the tip of the iceberg though. Until it is fixed, Rangers really need a dedicated team of people working on them. It’s a whole class. It deserves attention.

hunterkiller.5419:

been thinking that rangers need a redistribution in power. give rangers CC/condi for all weapon skills and have only 1 of each where all the damages go into (maul for GS, perhaps remove auto attack and make LB a chargeble attack rooting the player down).

increase utility. make rangers a partial guard because reliance on nature to give boons, or giving boons to pets to allow the lil one to make the finishing blow. should be interesting, maybe give rangers more weapon choices, hammer and shield should be okay.

No…
Ranger is about mobile combat, IMHO… We don’t need more skills that roots us, but more that allow us to kite…

I have nothing against power weapon/burst, but, once again, “no” to give all our weapons a burst possibility… See GS has burst possibility, and AA does no damage. It is basically “oh, #2 is off CD, use it!”.
I like how, lets say SB, is: AA until foe gets close, then 2, then either change weapon or get away with 3. It means being reactive with weapons skills, which is the thing I love about rangers, the thing that makes this profession different…

Power weapon (GS/LB) can get bursty to fit in burst meta, but I hope to keep the situational gameplay of the rest…

I see so much of the pets / no pets discussion in this thread. What I find weird is that so many people take the stance that only the way they want to play the ranger should be implemented.

I think that both playing with a heavy emphasis on pets or with very little emphasis should be possible. Personally, when I first made a ranger during the open beta weekends, I wanted to play a character that felt like Legolas or Robin Hood, not like Tarzan king of the jungle; however I am sure that some people would love to be able to play like that.

I find that many of the weapon skills give the feeling that I was looking for, but the pet gets in the way not only in the damage output that I would have liked to do in WvW when defending or attacking near walls, but also with the theme that I want.

Idea Intro:
Personally, I think there should be a couple 10 point beast mastery traits which dramatically change the way the profession mechanic works. I believe that having traits which modify the profession mechanic to work differently exist in other classes (such as a thief being able to trait for steal to steal boons, or to grant boon upon stealing, or to do damage and heal, or even to stun or grant stealth) so it wouldn’t be such a long shot for this to be acceptable for a ranger to get.

New 10 point beast mastery trait: Your damaging stats are reduced by 30%, but you now have two pets out at once, with 4 total pets that are summoned in sets of 2. Pets now cleave.

New 10 point beast mastery trait: You gain the ability to merge with your pet, gaining an ability and stat increase according to its family. All skills that grant the pet a boon, now give it to you instead while merged.

Beast Mastery 5 pt trait: Your pets lose conditions every X seconds and heal Y amount every second, when merged this applies to you.

Trait Lines in general:

Please condense pet traits into the beast mastery line. Only one trait line should be dedicated to the profession mechanic, and it should be awesome!

Marksmanship should also be looked at. Opening strikes is not that amazing, and should be changed/replaced with useful 5/15 point traits (possibly a +300 range for all ranged weapons as one of the traits), and a 10% damage boost trait for the 25 pt trait. The general theme of this trait line should be improving ranged weapons. Move and condense all ranged traits into this line, additionally traps should be moved here due to their conditions and the line’s condition duration synergy. Trap traits should also be condensed to make them more useful without needing to invest 30 pts. (Also, I consider traps to be ranged because they can be thrown.)

Skirmishing 5/15/25 point traits have too much emphasis on swapping weapons, and if using a ranged weapon, it is unlikely that you will be flanking your target unless they are running away. This allows your target to weaken your damage output if they know just to face you, and since rangers have very little stealth compared to thieves this is rather unfair in my opinion. Additionally, spotter and signet traits should be moved here. Signet traits should be condensed so you don’t need to invest 30 pts for them to be useful. This trait line should greatly increase constant damage, that also makes that most sense based on its attributes (crit damage and crit chance).

Wilderness survival is nice, but the condition removal should be more available. Also, move and condense all damaging condition based traits here.

Nature magic should be all about boons and group support. Move and condense all traits with group boons here. This should be the line that makes people want a ranger with them. Also condense spirit traits, you should not need to invest 30 pts to make a type of utility skill useful.

Long Bow Skills:

Point blank shot: change from a knockback to a knockdown! This is an extremely annoying skill for all melee classes on your team, and probably contributes to some of the ranger hate!

Hunter’s shot: Make this the rooted channeled sniper like shot, which grants stealth after being fired (not on hit, to help with escaping for a now possibly dangerous situation after having been self rooted). Does increased damage based on how low the enemies health is (like a non spam-able ranged version on thief’s heart seeker), with increased range. This skill is now a finisher, and provides a little of the spike damage that the ranger needs for wvw.

Barrage: No longer self roots. Has its cast time decreased to 1 second. Has its cooldown decreased to 10 seconds. Has the number of times it hits decreased from 12 to 4. This allows this AoE skill to be used more frequently, and hit opponents more times. Usually, most people move out of it within 2 hits, making the additional 10 times it hits the area pointless. Also this will help the ranger with better mob tagging.

Rapid Fire: Increased to 12 hits. Channel Time is 4 seconds. Vulnerability is removed. A few of the arrows apply a 1/4 second daze. This helps to shut down and stop an opponents burst skills if timed, helping the ranger to prolong the fight.

Long range shot: Damage tiers are no longer based on range, but this skill instead has additional increased range.

Do you have a suggestion on which topic you’d like to discuss while we wait for direction from ANet?

Shouts.

Mr. Cronacher mentioned them as “needing tweaks to make them more appealing”. That serves just fine as a topic starter in my book. We sort of collectively skimmed that, because they’re hard to talk about without getting the pet in order first.

But take a stab at it anyway.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Do you have a suggestion on which topic you’d like to discuss while we wait for direction from ANet?

Shouts.

Mr. Cronacher mentioned them as “needing tweaks to make them more appealing”. That serves just fine as a topic starter in my book. We sort of collectively skimmed that, because they’re hard to talk about without getting the pet in order first.

But take a stab at it anyway.

I’d love to read porposals for shouts but I wouldn’t know where to start talking about those skills honestly.

Shouts pertain to pets, until we know what is happening with pets, we won’t know what to ask for when it comes to shouts. Perhaps you would rather talk about signets? oh wait, signets also pertain mostly to pets don’t they? well, I guess we’re stuck on trying to find out what’s going on with pets so we can see what direction to take this profession on shouts and everything else along the line. But since the dev’s don’t collaborate in a collaborative thread, we are mostly typing blind.

How would the anti-pet people feel about a new pet family that worked more like a Locust Swarm chain skill? I’m writing up a proposal.

• F2 would summon the swarm aura around you to defend you and hit nearby foes.
• Hitting F2 again would send the swarm to deal consistent damage over time to your target.
• Hitting it again would return the swarm to you.
• It could not be targeted, killed, or named, instead it would gradually lose health over time and disappear.

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Any amount of healing a pet receives is enough to resurrect it with the amount of health it gained from that healing

Goal of Proposal
The goal of this proposal is a work around for the pet reliability. By having the pet be ressed by any amount of healing means that the ranger can actively res a pet by using various healing skills.

But also, similar to how the pet dies from random AE, it now also benefits from random AE healing.

Proposal Functionality
If a pet receives any healing from any source, and the pet is dead, it is resurrected with the amount of health it would have gained from the healing source would it not have been dead.

Associated Risks
Non that I can think of, the pet will become somewhat more of a reliable source, and the ranger will have the option to resurrect their dead pet by using a healing skill, instead of using a swap. It actually reduces the risk of putting a res on a specific ranger healing skill and ‘bombarding it’ to the ‘must have heal for the ranger’.

sorry for interrupting the shouts discussion, this just popped in my head while going over the ranger skills for specific shout issues/improvements/sollutions, and seeing I think this can work in concurrence with other pet solutions I thought it best to just post it anyways, SHOUTS !!

Arghore.8340:

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Any amount of healing a pet receives is enough to resurrect it with the amount of health it gained from that healing

Goal of Proposal
The goal of this proposal is a work around for the pet reliability. By having the pet be ressed by any amount of healing means that the ranger can actively res a pet by using various healing skills.

But also, similar to how the pet dies from random AE, it now also benefits from random AE healing.

Proposal Functionality
If a pet receives any healing from any source, and the pet is dead, it is resurrected with the amount of health it would have gained from the healing source would it not have been dead.

Associated Risks
Non that I can think of, the pet will become somewhat more of a reliable source, and the ranger will have the option to resurrect their dead pet by using a healing skill, instead of using a swap. It actually reduces the risk of putting a res on a specific ranger healing skill and ‘bombarding it’ to the ‘must have heal for the ranger’.

sorry for interrupting the shouts discussion, this just popped in my head while going over the ranger skills for specific shout issues/improvements/sollutions, and seeing I think this can work in concurrence with other pet solutions I thought it best to just post it anyways, SHOUTS !!

Risk:

• Signet of the wild will make the pet immortal.
• Pet becomes impossible to kill.
• Doesn’t make the pet reliable. It just make the pet immortal.

Dave Pare.2069:

Vox Hollow.2736:

Do you have a suggestion on which topic you’d like to discuss while we wait for direction from ANet?

Shouts.

Mr. Cronacher mentioned them as “needing tweaks to make them more appealing”. That serves just fine as a topic starter in my book. We sort of collectively skimmed that, because they’re hard to talk about without getting the pet in order first.

But take a stab at it anyway.

I’d love to read porposals for shouts but I wouldn’t know where to start talking about those skills honestly.

They can be made to have two components, a pet buff and a party buff.
Sic’em Can hit them with 15vul or something
Protect Me can give the pet protection and redirect nearby damage to itself…etc

I’ll do a proper write up later

runeblade.7514:

Arghore.8340:

Specific Game Mode
PvX

Proposal Overview
Any amount of healing a pet receives is enough to resurrect it with the amount of health it gained from that healing

Goal of Proposal
The goal of this proposal is a work around for the pet reliability. By having the pet be ressed by any amount of healing means that the ranger can actively res a pet by using various healing skills.

But also, similar to how the pet dies from random AE, it now also benefits from random AE healing.

Proposal Functionality
If a pet receives any healing from any source, and the pet is dead, it is resurrected with the amount of health it would have gained from the healing source would it not have been dead.

Associated Risks
Non that I can think of, the pet will become somewhat more of a reliable source, and the ranger will have the option to resurrect their dead pet by using a healing skill, instead of using a swap. It actually reduces the risk of putting a res on a specific ranger healing skill and ‘bombarding it’ to the ‘must have heal for the ranger’.

sorry for interrupting the shouts discussion, this just popped in my head while going over the ranger skills for specific shout issues/improvements/sollutions, and seeing I think this can work in concurrence with other pet solutions I thought it best to just post it anyways, SHOUTS !!

Risk:

• Signet of the wild will make the pet immortal.
• Pet becomes impossible to kill.
• Doesn’t make the pet reliable. It just make the pet immortal.

But if we just make it to be direct heals, and not regens or passive heals, might be a good idea… (if alive, takes regen, if dead, don’t, needs an active heal, like a burst on water field or an activated master’s heal… not just from Ele’s fields, Gard’s traited dodge or other source)

I just hate when my pet is about to die, I have 3 sec CD on heal, 2 sec on pet swap, I spam F3 for it to get out of there, but Bam! dead, 60 sec CD…

On shouts, an analysis.

Guard, while I think guard is mainly a ‘stay’ command, combined with an aggressive stance pet. Seeing it is the only way to tell the pet to ‘stay’ it is useful in that way. I do not sPvP (yet) so I have no clue how valuable it is as an ‘area alarm’.

Protect me, I think this skill fall under the ‘animal cruelty’ clause of the TAPF (Tyrian Animal Protection Force). From my perspective (as a supportive of TAPF Tyrian citizen) it should change.

S&R, while this skill is just great in design, for the long recharge that is on it, it should also have 100% protection during the revive time. It may warrant a larger range too, and perhaps a QoL-grey if no dead players in range, functionality. But even then I were to argue that the recharge might need to be brought down.

Sic ’Em seeing there is also ‘signet ot hunt’ and I think also a trait that lets pets move faster, and the mentioned ‘reliability factor’ of pets being increased with a higher base speed. I wonder if this shout isn’t an overdone ‘tripple’ functionality skill.

Shouts in general I think should be the accompanied by signets in the Beastmaster-line. Where they offer a more active approach/choice for managing the pet, as opposed to the mostly passive approach offered from signets.