Guild Wars 2

I just hope that we’ve made clear that the pet is indeed promoting the beastmaster playstyle, but criples all other playstyles.

On a completely unrelated matter:

As a Ranger myself i think it’s an absolutely brilliant class. The ranged combat is fantastic IMHO but the Melee combat…Is debatable.

Which is why i have a suggestion that you guys maybe add an Elite skill that allows you to “Merge” With one of your pets and gain unique skills from 1 – 9. Sort of like a shapeshifter. Other Professions have Shapeshifting abilities so i think it could work well

I don’t know if this has been suggested before but this is just my 2cents worth

Now now, MQM, let’s let the Rangers have their time. Eles are next, and then it’s us necros.

On topic for the Ranger CDI, though, I feel pets would become much better if the F2 command simply caused the pet to immedietly cancel their current action and execute the skill, much like activating a healing skill cancels any skill you were using at that time. The code is already there, so it should be fairly simple to implement.

“Should” being the operative term. I know that sometimes these things get tricky for no apparent reason.

The pet should simply not be a requirement to the ranger class, unless the developers can actually make the pet work in every aspect of the game, including every boss encounter. If they can’t, allow us to swap out the pet for something more useful. Otherwise the ranger will always be inferior to other classes that are not bound to a broken pet system.

In short: Make it work completely, or step away from the pet requirement entirely.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Now now, MQM, let’s let the Rangers have their time. Eles are next, and then it’s us necros.

I’ll believe it when I see an improvement to the ranger first.

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

There are so many different aspects of your post that resonate with how I myself feel about Ranger.

Just a great post, I agree wholeheartedly.

Allie Murdock.8152:

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

Allie, would it -after all possible changes- be possible to still get a permastow for Pets even without a buff?

The reason is quite simple. There are some points where I simply prefer not to have my pet pop out. Some examples are if you’re running through a crowded zone, it’s easier to do this solo. Other examples are Achievements. The recent LS has not one but two Achievements that can’t be obtained unless the pet is put on passive, one of them can still be lost if the pet decides to wander a bit. This isn’t the first LS to introduce a mechanic like that, Canach’s mines were similar.
Another mechanic that has seen popular reuse is the “Jump Waves” trick introduced in the Molten Alliance LS, reused several times, like with Tequatl. It’s quite simple, Pets currently can not/do not avoid obvious AoE Markings and can not jump attack patterns like that.
While for other classes, AI controlled minions are optional and most of the time easily replaced, continued use of mechanics like this that are “anti-pet” sometimes make us wonder if someone on the team tested the content with a Ranger.
Of course it would be best if Pet AI got buffed to avoid obvious markings like mines, announced AoE attacks and jumped all waves flawlessy, but let’s be realistic here and assume they can’t. The easiest solution I can think of to deal with these situations is either Permastow or untargetable, immortal pets. The latter might also be justifiable since Pets are essentially part of a Ranger’s DPS and it shouldn’t be possible to reduce the DPS of a single class so easily.

In the case of LS specifically, maybe when the ranger rezzes in, “Do you want to stow your pet for the duration of this event?” A band-aid like that would’ve made Canach a lot easier.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Now now, MQM, let’s let the Rangers have their time. Eles are next, and then it’s us necros.

I wouldn’t hold your breath. If just a quarter of the suggestions made in this thread are taken into consideration, we would have to wait a long time to see some core-mechanics to be improved.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

I wouldn’t hold your breath. If just a quarter of the suggestions made in this thread are taken into consideration, we would have to wait a long time to see some core-mechanics to be improved.

I’m still waiting for that big dungeon overhaul that we were promised. I mean all this back and forth between the players and the developers is nice. But it’s been over a year already. I can’t help but feel a bit skeptical. Skeptical that the problems with the ranger will be fixed, double skeptical about the ele-fix, and triple so for a necromancer way down the line.

And lets be honest, the balance team hasn’t exactly got a good track record with fixing balance issues (I’m looking at you warrior). Which makes me wonder two things:

Why the sudden interest in the other classes now?

And why after a full year? Why not sooner? Why not right after release?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Why the sudden interest in the other classes now?

And why after a full year? Why not sooner? Why not right after release?

Nothing to do after the living world has passed.
Seriously, if they want to announce a new addon, which some have proposed, ANet would be better off fixing the old classes first before adding new ones with the addon.

I still think we are missing quite a bit of dev feedback here. Specifically in regards to the pet damage and leash nerfs. There had to be a reason for that, and obviously all of the posts here suggesting more pet usefulness will be tainted by whatever reason caused the nerfs in the first place.

In fact, prior to said nerfs I do not recall reading many complaints about pets. There has always been the survivability issue, and to an extent getting in the way during certain times, however nothing to the level we have now.

Chrispy.5641:

Berk.8561:

I did some sample builds in a build editor and to really do the trap build right, I’d also have to drain the Marksmanship trait line, since it doesn’t add to Condition damage at all, which reduces Power and eliminates all of the traits that would make a bow worthwhile to use. It would be nice if the Trap traits actually added to Condition Damage instead of Precision (useless with traps) and Critical Damage (also useless with traps). If the trap traits were in the Wilderness Survival line that added Condition Damage (which actually goes with traps) and Toughness, I would work much better and I wouldn’t have to sacrifice every bow trait to optimize the trap part of the build, just Quick Draw.

True stuff said here…

I also want to point out that ‘maybe’ the reason why traps are in the skirmish line is because they are intended for skirmish kind of battle?

But, if you choose your weapons and your skills, and to those you add those traits that maximize (within the boundaries) the thing you want to do with those weapons.
For the build you seem to want, I myself would likely go 20/30/20/0/0, with:
Marks
- Keen Edge
- Eagle Eye
Skirm
- Sharpened edges
- Quick draw
- Trap Potency
Wilderness
- Expertise training
- w/e (or spend these w/e you want – f/e nature magic and “nature’s bounty”)

- fix some more condition damage with armour, trinkets and weapons

Two bows, healing, two traps, sharpening stone, entangle
Likely use spiketrap & firetrap; seeing most foes go for melee range, you pull them with bow, sharpening stone + rapid fire, switch bows, cast traps at your feet, hit poison volley, few steps back, traps spring, hit quickshot, either do some crossfire/concussion, or switch bows for barrage, and another rapid with sharpening stone (if it doesn’t trigger from the trait by now). Type /laugh and find something new to kill ?

Sure with the build you will have very little heal or boons, but if you pick some nice condi armour that reads like a pretty nice bow/condi/trap build to me ? And if all goes wrong you hit Entangle and have some time to regain momentum (or run, or use invis on longbow)… ?

OR what am I missing here?

Arghore.8340:

OR what am I missing here?

Thematically, traps belong in Wilderness Survival (you know, snaring wild game to get food?). In addition, all of the traps in GW1 were Wilderness Survival-governed.

By a happy accident, Wilderness Survival is also the condition damage line, which helps make the traps better.

Sorry long post. Basically pointing out a few flaws in out utility skills from a range play-style (I know range isn’t viable, but if it ever does become viable, having utilities for it can’t hurt)

One of the major things I noticed was the utility skill issue. If you want to play a range-focused build (it’s not viable at all in game currently dps-wise, which is another issue), there are very few utilities to support this.

The shouts are for the pet and someone wanting to play range won’t benefit much from the pet most of the time and likely won’t be traiting into BM to make the pet more likely to survive.

The traps, you need to trait deep into to have them work and playing a range build makes them less potent as using the fields is harder (blast/leap finishers generally being better than the projectile ones). While this is the choice that struck me as most logical, it still leaves a lot to be desired.

The signets would be a good choice but again require a massive investment just to have them actually affect the character.

Spirits can be useful in cases untraited (a couple of places in dungeons), but outside of fights in a small area with safe spots or no AoE, the value of spirits drop. In WvW, PvP or PvE/dungeons where you’d need to move a lot, an unmoving spirit is not a good choice. Traiting deep into spirits again is a lot to just make a utility useful, particularly if you don’t bring a full set of spirits.
An additional issue is that with the spirits following close while traited, they will likely get hit by any AoE the ranger dodges. Traiting 30 points into spirits should allow positioning (leaving a spirit by an ally or in a safe spot while the ranger fights)

The survival skills are somewhat useful, but also there are a few issues with them. Both Sharpening Stone and Lightning Reflexes have very long cd for effects that don’t seem to warrant it. Sharpening Stone can add a bit of pressure but unless you keep the pressure up with other conditions, it’ll get cleansed fast. In a power build it can tip the scale if not cleansed, but it’s a rare thing and it’s a long cd.
Lightning Reflexes is a great skill (just to get that clear first), but with the massive amount of hard CC in game, the cd seems excessive. However, this could also be contributed to the cd on CC abilities on other classes (warrior) being too short.

Quickening Zephyr isn’t as efficient after the changes to quickness, also it comes with a healing debuff which does make it a high risk/low reward skill the way I see.

Muddy Terrain is great for a range build by at least slightly improving chances to stay range a few seconds more, but I’m left wondering why this isn’t the way all traps are. This skill triggers when cast and is always ground targetted. I’m left wondering why it doesn’t count as a trap and even more so why all traps are not by default like this.
Traiting for traps should give the option of placing them ahead of time and manually triggering instead of the current way. That way traiting traps would still be worthwhile but traps would be more viable without traits.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Arghore.8340:

OR what am I missing here?

Thematically, traps belong in Wilderness Survival (you know, snaring wild game to get food?). In addition, all of the traps in GW1 were Wilderness Survival-governed.

By a happy accident, Wilderness Survival is also the condition damage line, which helps make the traps better.

You do realize that that may well be an additional reason as to why traps are ‘not’ in the wilderness line. And that, where they have been in the wilderness line, that condition damage would have likely been on skirmishing instead…

@Aria , because if traps were ground targeted by default, they would be a big pain to use in any close range or medium range skirmish fight. There is just no time for the extra ‘place the trap’ and in those ranges there is also no real use for them being thrown. Hope you will trust me on that, coming from an Axe trapper…

Gotejjeken.1267:

I still think we are missing quite a bit of dev feedback here. Specifically in regards to the pet damage and leash nerfs. There had to be a reason for that, and obviously all of the posts here suggesting more pet usefulness will be tainted by whatever reason caused the nerfs in the first place.

In fact, prior to said nerfs I do not recall reading many complaints about pets. There has always been the survivability issue, and to an extent getting in the way during certain times, however nothing to the level we have now.

Oh, there were complaints about them, but only in sPvP, nowhere else. That’s what led to all the pet nerfs, QQing from sPvP about a class who is only good at 1v1s and holding points…which led to the destruction of the class everywhere else. It’s also the MAIN reason why I have always hated sPvP and the sPvP community.

Arghore.8340:

I also want to point out that ‘maybe’ the reason why traps are in the skirmish line is because they are intended for skirmish kind of battle?

Sure, but they make just as much sense as Wilderness Survival and if the ranger is intended to do condition damage as part of Skirmishing, shouldn’t that be there, then?

Arghore.8340:

But, if you choose your weapons and your skills, and to those you add those traits that maximize (within the boundaries) the thing you want to do with those weapons.
For the build you seem to want, I myself would likely go 20/30/20/0/0, with:
Marks
- Keen Edge
- Eagle Eye
Skirm
- Sharpened edges
- Quick draw
- Trap Potency
Wilderness
- Expertise training
- w/e (or spend these w/e you want – f/e nature magic and “nature’s bounty”)

- fix some more condition damage with armour, trinkets and weapons

Sure, and the 20/30/20/0/0 combos I tried out in a build editor were probably a good compromise, but without Trapper’s Expertise, I don’t get ground targeting for traps so I can’t throw them off of walls. Without Piercing Arrows, I lose a key opportunity to get multiple hits firing into crowds (which is why my current build does without Eagle Eye). What’s preventing me from trying it out is that I’m not really in the mood to get yet another set of armor and weapons and rune and sigil them up, since I just did that for another level 80 and got some armor to try out different rune sets with my other 80s. When I have the resources to put together a set of exotic runed Carrion/Dire/Rabid armor for an experiment, I may give it a try.

Arghore.8340:

OR what am I missing here?

The point remains that what I want to play is still an archer and not a trap guy with bows, yet this build is really all about building up the effectiveness of traps, not bows, if I want it to work really well. I’d like to be able to deliver that condition damage, or burst damage, through the bow rather than through traps. Is that really an unreasonable way to want to play?

“I want carrots.”

“Here, have some peas.”

“I don’t want peas.”

“Have some peas mixed with carrots. It’s just like the carrots alone.”

“But I don’t want peas. I want carrots.”

“You have to have the peas. Trust us, you’ll like them.”

Ugh!

Allie Murdock.8152:

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

:) This is fantastic to hear that we’re on the same page. Even if nothing changes or the balance team disagrees – knowing that you understand our issues and can relay them is great.

I don’t necessarily care that the ranger isn’t an archer (though that’s why I made one), but I definitely care that the pet is preventing me from getting the “don’t touch beamz” achievement in Battle of Lion’s Arch and prevented me from getting Canach’s “don’t touch my bombs” achievement. But it can also be irritating to be 70% of a full class for high end content since our pets are dead for most high-end content.

Allie Murdock.8152:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, the ranger is designed to have a pet. That doesn’t mean it should be a constant requirement. Having so many utility skills and traits tied to the pet makes the class unique. Whether or not players wish to really explore this option for damage augmentation should be on them. Just like Warrior’s Adrenaline and Thief’s Steal mechanics, those can be built around, are always available, but are not REQUIRED. A 30% damage penalty at the cost of something players may not wish to build around is simply too strict, and honestly, is just bad design. This is especially because there are no alternatives to an archer. Longbow warrior/shortbow thief are simply inadequate archers from many perspectives and this leads into another fallacy.

A massive source of complaints revolves around the fact that there exists no viable archer role in the game, and has nothing to do with the pet dependency. Simply, the pet is a style of play and a flavor addition, just as is being a heavy warrior with a big weapon, a nimble assassin, a mage, or in this case an ARCHER. Yes, the issues with pets can be resolved by potential updating, but it doesn’t solve the inherent design flaw which forces a style of play upon players while denying them another. Pets being optional resolves both conflicts, especially if they are buffed such that beastmasters and pet users/pets in general retain their usefulness/utility while blatantly denying dedicated archer/DPS roles. The reason why pet removal has so much support is a combination of the notions that rangers in general want more viability/consistency, and players wanting to play a dedicated archer (or light/medium armor skirmisher in fewer cases).

I hope this helps explain the origins behind why so many players want the option to remove the pet. Simply, the alternative play styles need to be considered somewhere in the game, and that either means reworking thief to allow for a longbow/new weapon implementation while also reworking ranger to fix pets, or simply re-working the ranger class (which is obviously less work than both classes) to make literally everyone happy and resolve all of the current class problems.

Thanks for your dedication and I hope you take this post more seriously when trying to evaluate the credibility of the insight regarding pet removal/stowing.

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

Awesome. Getting this point across I believe is the most important part of actually resolving the conflicts with the class. As you mentioned earlier, I think the devs saw the pet complaints regarding removal more as means of a band-aid fix to make the class simply a little more viable instead of one which actually inhibits a lot of stylistic choices while also preventing better class tweaks. With this ideology in mind, we can definitely make progress collectively to better this class, or rather, the game in general. The biggest obstacle I believe has now been overcome in that such discussion stems largely from style and not simply number-crunching and class viability discussions.

If this message is accepted and understood by the team to require a larger-scale rework, another CDI thread may be in line, such that the developers (or you posting on the behalf of the developers) can state their updated vision of the class expecting a rework, and we can discuss more of the specific changes necessary to individual traits/skills to truly make the class way more successful. As it stands, little needs major overhauls in the Power/Precision lines for this to be successful, and the real discussion would come in the form of the beastmasters’ opinions on how to make such build paths both fun to play and extremely deadly.

@Berk,
The first comment I have already answered too in my response to Drarnor. I think they are not there because they may well be to strong?

The second, ok yeah, didn’t entirely follow the conversation, did think about piercing but figured that only be truly helpful in bunched up places, so yeah WvW … and I fully understand and also am a bit sad about the whole stat situation. Personally I feel ‘we’ went backwards on that one, when coming from GW1 :/ … what about throwing in Quickening instead of Quick draw? … because you should realize that when slotting throwing traps you will be doing that too, and might only need a quicker bow while your traps are on cooldown.

So 30/30/… 10 somewhere… with bow, spring, 2 traps, quickening.
Keen Edge, Piercing, Remorseless, Sharpen, Expertise, Potency, something…
Put a warhorn on your swap, for added speed and fury/might, combo with spring or any other WvW blast need of the moment. Focus stats on power, condition damage or duration, ignore the crit.damage stat on traps, you just need the investment for the traits. And grab a bear so you can mostly ignore it too…

I can see how it’s not optimal, you would likely rather go 30/20/30, focus on bow and traps, condition duration and damage… and playing WvW on my ranger, i have played it somewhat like this, but then 10/30/20/10/0 which is my axe/trap setup, mostly with zerker gear, and toughness trinkets (2 are ‘all stats’ as well as 2 travelers’, and 4 lyssa). I just equipped a bow and basically switch in the throw traps. Other set is Axe, warhorn.

So i can see where you are coming from… especially since, well, objectively spoken it is currently the only somewhat possibly reliable WvW build, where you can actually do something that has some sort of impact that seems to feel it’s related to what everybody else is doing in WvW. And i should likely put somewhat viable here too just for good measure :P

Thing is though, I would rather see other things added (or changed) to give us more viable builds in WvW. Though I fear that if traps move to wilderness, that condition damage moves to skirmish. It may improve the situation somewhat. And i could likely alter my build a bit, just not to sure about any other trapper builds… or condition builds for that matter…

wat

Allie Murdock.8152:

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

I don’t think anybody questions that some classes, or should I say specs, are easier to play than others.

I do think the ones that are easier to play shouldn’t be so rewarding, though. It’s hard to balance that correctly in our game right now, though.

I’ll make a note to bring up the trait discrepancies.

I think the biggest flaw of the current ranger traitsystem is:
1. Traits regarding the pet are scattered all over our traitlines which reduces the possibility to build a build which doesn’t rely heavily on the pet.
2. The traits can be divided in “promotes pet” or in “promotes ranger”. If we want to trait for a beastmaster spec, we should be able to promote both us and our pet.
I also want to add Nike’s proposals regarding the traits since he summed up the whole mess quite nicely.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

That’s exactly the point!
Our pet behaves like rolling over buttons all the time and no matter how much you will tweak the AI, it will never become as skillfull as the player and that’s the reason why the pet oughtn’t be burdened with dealing our damage.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Nike.2631:

Allie Murdock.8152:

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I get frustrated by the simple lack of synergy between skills. When you play a condi-necro and can dance through your buttons to put a bleed on the target & yourself with utility, then use your off-hand to move your bleed to them, then use a utility to copy all those bleed to all enemies in the area while putting conditions on yourself, then use your heal to cleanse those conditions and gain bonus healing for doing so… you know that playing those out of order or having to respond to changing circumstances will affect your performance.

Compared to that, ranger gameplay is just dull. You occasionally can stack up a few ‘on next hit’ buffs to pump a single maul, but their weapon skills and utilities mostly feel like oatmeal. There is no difference in what happens if I cast my traps in different orders. there’s no combos, no special order or special timing for many, many Ranger skills.

As a general statement there are also far too many ranger traits that reduce cooldown and nothing else – in other professions we’ve seen a steady march towards combing the 20% cooldown with a secondary flavorful effect. Rangers have good effects but they are spread out across too many traits. A little combining or making certain effcts default behavior of the class would go a long way towards injecting not just raw power, but some cool into a class that sorely needs it.

I don’t think anybody questions that some classes, or should I say specs, are easier to play than others.

I do think the ones that are easier to play shouldn’t be so rewarding, though. It’s hard to balance that correctly in our game right now, though.

I’ll make a note to bring up the trait discrepancies.

I think the biggest flaw of the current ranger traitsystem is:
1. Traits regarding the pet are scattered all over our traitlines which reduces the possibility to build a build which doesn’t rely heavily on the pet-
2. The traits can be divided in “promotes pet” or in “promotes ranger”. If we want to trait for a beastmaster spec, we should be able to promote both us and our pet.
I also want to add Nike’s proposals regarding the traits since he summed up the whole mess quite nicely.

+1 this.

I don’t understand what makes it even sensible to have traits like “pets move faster” or pets do x, y ,z. in the skirmishing line. Like really? this trait literally might be used by 0.05% of the ranger player base

Theres literally 4-5 of these junk traits in every single line. And its such a waste. What on earth is the point of the beast master trait line? Literally every single trait line on ranger has beast-master traits in them….i don’t even.. just a big face palm..

Rename this class to beastmaster, don’t call this a ranger.

We have so little to work with if we actually want to be a ranger

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

That’s exactly the point!
Our pet behaves like rolling over buttons all the time and no matter how much you will tweak the AI, it will never become as skillfull as the player and that’s the reason why the pet oughtn’t be burdened with dealing our damage.

If the dev’s dont figure out that this class needs less pet crap and more actual ranger synergy, than you can kiss this class goodbye.

If they seriously honest to god believe that pets will EVER be worth 30% of my DPS, I will just cry. I’m convinced no one on anet has put more than 20-30 hours on a ranger.

I would be MUCH happier if they did no damage what so ever, only used as pure support (just give them all different buffs when they are out like eagle gives you and your whole party fury for xx seconds than switches over to a prec based buff to whole party after the fury time is done… or something like river drake cleanses + heal when swapped into battle and than gives all nearby allies condi cleansing every 10 secs + some hp regen like ele attuned to water.

I don’t care what you have to do to pet as long as my ranger is the main focus (give me 100% DPS back or at least something better than what it currently is because its laughably awful)

Hey ANET, thank you so much for the great replies so far! <3

My own question: A lot of players are worried that Ranger is held back because they tend to range foes, whereas everyone else stacks and melee. This results in the Ranger not giving or receiving buffs with the team.

If Rangers are intended to be the masters of Ranged damage, then this issue must be addressed. Is this currently a concern?

(My own personal idea is to synchronize buffs with the Ranger and his pet, so that the ranger could buff his party from a distance, as well as being buffed from a distance… E.G. If the pet receives might, so does the Ranger. The Ranger ranges, while the pet melees and gives him all the buff benefits of going melee.)

RyuDragnier.9476:

Gotejjeken.1267:

I still think we are missing quite a bit of dev feedback here. Specifically in regards to the pet damage and leash nerfs. There had to be a reason for that, and obviously all of the posts here suggesting more pet usefulness will be tainted by whatever reason caused the nerfs in the first place.

In fact, prior to said nerfs I do not recall reading many complaints about pets. There has always been the survivability issue, and to an extent getting in the way during certain times, however nothing to the level we have now.

Oh, there were complaints about them, but only in sPvP, nowhere else. That’s what led to all the pet nerfs, QQing from sPvP about a class who is only good at 1v1s and holding points…which led to the destruction of the class everywhere else. It’s also the MAIN reason why I have always hated sPvP and the sPvP community.

They’re also the group of people that tricked Anet into powercreeping the hell out of the Warrior just because it wasn’t amazing at 100% of the game.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Gotejjeken.1267:

I still think we are missing quite a bit of dev feedback here. Specifically in regards to the pet damage and leash nerfs. There had to be a reason for that, and obviously all of the posts here suggesting more pet usefulness will be tainted by whatever reason caused the nerfs in the first place.

In fact, prior to said nerfs I do not recall reading many complaints about pets. There has always been the survivability issue, and to an extent getting in the way during certain times, however nothing to the level we have now.

Oh, there were complaints about them, but only in sPvP, nowhere else. That’s what led to all the pet nerfs, QQing from sPvP about a class who is only good at 1v1s and holding points…which led to the destruction of the class everywhere else. It’s also the MAIN reason why I have always hated sPvP and the sPvP community.

Spend that anger as energy to lobby to try and get Anet to fully separate Pve/Wvw/spvp balancing instead of hating people and a game mode that hasnt done anything to you.

Lets just end the spvp talk and get back to rangers

Substance E.4852:

They’re also the group of people that tricked Anet into powercreeping the hell out of the Warrior just because it wasn’t amazing at 100% of the game.

What are you talking about, warriors are fine. (Rolled one some time back to give it a try – did not like the play style.)

Though seriously, I still prefer my ranger over my warrior, which is why poor Garah has stalled out around 60. I thought I’d try to learn to play and get in on WvW as a warrior and continue PvE as a ranger. Then I actually tried to play as a warrior . . .

Didn’t work. It. Did. Not. Work.

It was more boring than playing a ranger, more prone to getting pasted and stomped, and I generally just couldn’t find something in the class which felt comfortable enough. I mean, in theory I found some cool and fun options for personal story bits where I would wind up having to get creative to stunlock things stomping on me then.

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

I actually have this wild thought, wild, I have to point this out: since there is no shape-shifting class so far,why not allow ranger to shape-shift animal form(whit their pets, real “rampage as one”.
well, I know that’s pretty much DRUID’s job and feature, but considering their was no druid and is no druid in gw and gw2, maybe ranger can do this, you know, gw2 featued ranger.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

The ranger should atleast be able to compete damagewise.
But yeah, I already have 2 warriors; I don’t need a 3rd one.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

The ranger should atleast be able to compete damagewise.
But yeah, I already have 2 warriors; I don’t need a 3rd one.

No argument there.

Well, maybe a minor one. I’m not sure we should compete for damage – we’ll lose. What we should compete for is being useful.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I went back to ranger because even though warrior may be regarded as king of the game? It doesn’t work for me. And it’s why I really don’t want the ranger to turn into “warrior in medium gear”.

The ranger should atleast be able to compete damagewise.
But yeah, I already have 2 warriors; I don’t need a 3rd one.

No argument there.

Well, maybe a minor one. I’m not sure we should compete for damage – we’ll lose. What we should compete for is being useful.

I just want to see “teh big numberz” (* -*)

@ Ms. Murdock

It’s not so much that spammy specs are having too much impact, it’s that regardless of impact everything I do feels like spamming.

I’m on board with focusing on sustain damage as a concept, but how that’s being satisfied right now is just by focusing on autoattack.

Which is natively pretty boring, makes weaponskills feel more like separate utility skills instead of parts of a whole playstyle experience, and causes traits to be either bland or schizophrenically trying to make the whole thing seem interesting expostfacto.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

Thy for the red posts! But can you pls tell us something about that changes? As you can see we are very excited. I think this is one of the largest, most seen topics ever.

Vox Hollow.2736:

@ Allie

It’s not so much that spammy specs are having too much impact, it’s that regardless of impact everything I do feels like spamming.

I’m on board with focusing on sustain damage as a concept, but how that’s being satisfied right now is just by focusing on autoattack.

Which is just a touch natively boring, makes weapons feel more like additional utility skills instead of playstyle experiences, and causes traits to be a schizophrenic mess trying to make the whole thing seem interesting expostfacto when they’re actually trying to be interesting at all.

While I do agree with you that pressing 1 all the time is not very entertaining, I do like those weapons more, where every skill fulfills a purpose. Like the Shortbow: You want to use the poison if the enemy tries to heal, you want to cripple him if he comes to close, you want to use your evade if an AoE is fired at you, you want to use your daze/stun if the enemy is channeling. Ofcourse, this get pretty pointless in PvE. The only thing that matters in PvE is who can press his buttons most rapidly.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Oh, and I want to add to my last post:

Everybody can simply roll over their buttons and play a class well enough, but when you start to get to the higher tiers that doesn’t fly as much. You need to time your stuns/condis/stability/heals/etc. if you want to “play with the big boys.”

I know that there are some specs right now that are particularly spammy, though. We’re hoping that some of the changes we make in the feature build will help with a lot of that. One step at a time!

Yeah, for example while people give the Sword a lot of grief, I love it to bits.
Sure you can just mash the buttons, but if you know what your doing you can pull a lot of range with it and maneuver yourself very quickly.
And it combines well with a lot of offhands, and other abilities.
(although I think any high mobility skills work well with the rangers kit)

The only thing that needs tweaking is the AA, just so that your not locked into it and cannot dodge… kinda annoying.
But yeah, I get what Nike was getting at, most weapon skills besides the Sword and Dagger, and maybe the Greatsword which has swoop, most other skills are fairly generic. Esp the Longbow.

SkiTz.4590:

I don’t understand what makes it even sensible to have traits like “pets move faster” or pets do x, y ,z. in the skirmishing line. Like really? this trait literally might be used by 0.05% of the ranger player base

Theres literally 4-5 of these junk traits in every single line. And its such a waste. What on earth is the point of the beast master trait line? Literally every single trait line on ranger has beast-master traits in them….i don’t even.. just a big face palm..

If you want a melee pet to have a chance to hit moving players you want it to run faster… for example if you wanted to run axe/dagger, sword/torch w/traps… the agility training trait you complain about which is in skirmishing might be the only option for giving your pet needed pvp/wvw speed.

If all beastmaster traits were in the beastmaster line then you could only pick 3… not much variety, and the pet couldn’t get very powerful. Worse… if you wanted to do anything with your pet you would be forced to go into that line (which would be horrible). By spreading the traits out you can spec any way you want and still get some kind of benefit from your pets. The Mesmer pre/crit-damage line is similar… it has traits that generate clones and cause conditions with clones… not in the condition line and not in the illusion line. They have illusion/shatter traits all over. The pet is our profession mechanic so it is the same way.

My personal preference is beastmaster first, druid second, wildman/woodsman third, archer fourth and it is quite clear that many people have those archetypes in the opposite order.

Allie Murdock.8152:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, the ranger is designed to have a pet. That doesn’t mean it should be a constant requirement. Having so many utility skills and traits tied to the pet makes the class unique. Whether or not players wish to really explore this option for damage augmentation should be on them. Just like Warrior’s Adrenaline and Thief’s Steal mechanics, those can be built around, are always available, but are not REQUIRED. A 30% damage penalty at the cost of something players may not wish to build around is simply too strict, and honestly, is just bad design. This is especially because there are no alternatives to an archer. Longbow warrior/shortbow thief are simply inadequate archers from many perspectives and this leads into another fallacy.

A massive source of complaints revolves around the fact that there exists no viable archer role in the game, and has nothing to do with the pet dependency. Simply, the pet is a style of play and a flavor addition, just as is being a heavy warrior with a big weapon, a nimble assassin, a mage, or in this case an ARCHER. Yes, the issues with pets can be resolved by potential updating, but it doesn’t solve the inherent design flaw which forces a style of play upon players while denying them another. Pets being optional resolves both conflicts, especially if they are buffed such that beastmasters and pet users/pets in general retain their usefulness/utility while blatantly denying dedicated archer/DPS roles. The reason why pet removal has so much support is a combination of the notions that rangers in general want more viability/consistency, and players wanting to play a dedicated archer (or light/medium armor skirmisher in fewer cases).

I hope this helps explain the origins behind why so many players want the option to remove the pet. Simply, the alternative play styles need to be considered somewhere in the game, and that either means reworking thief to allow for a longbow/new weapon implementation while also reworking ranger to fix pets, or simply re-working the ranger class (which is obviously less work than both classes) to make literally everyone happy and resolve all of the current class problems.

Thanks for your dedication and I hope you take this post more seriously when trying to evaluate the credibility of the insight regarding pet removal/stowing.

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

I do have to agree that the Archer role, really is not being filled, least of all by the Ranger. Honestly, like the Necromancer, I think that Guild Wars had a far better take on it. Besides Signets and some of the high mobility skills, the Ranger took one giant step backwards in GW2.

One of the key restrictions for the Ranger as an Archer is the mandatory limitations on Range. You get 1200 range for the most part, 1500 if you invest in it, and that’s your lot. Which is completely pathetic.
I can understand generally why you’d want a limited range, for spells or bullets that travel instantly.

But arrows? Why on earth do they just magically stop after 1200-1500 range? Talk about immersion breaking.
And with all the massive gap closing abilities, it just becomes trivial to be at range.

Some of the best mechanics from GW were not only did you have the potential to have much longer range if you had the high ground advantage with projectile weapons, but through spirits and other skills you could increase you and your allies projectile speed, allowing you to have a much easier time hitting targets at range.
If these existed in this game, I don’t think we would be having this conversation about Archers not being viable.

Allie Murdock.8152:

DeceiverX.8361:

Sure, the ranger is designed to have a pet. That doesn’t mean it should be a constant requirement. Having so many utility skills and traits tied to the pet makes the class unique. Whether or not players wish to really explore this option for damage augmentation should be on them. Just like Warrior’s Adrenaline and Thief’s Steal mechanics, those can be built around, are always available, but are not REQUIRED. A 30% damage penalty at the cost of something players may not wish to build around is simply too strict, and honestly, is just bad design. This is especially because there are no alternatives to an archer. Longbow warrior/shortbow thief are simply inadequate archers from many perspectives and this leads into another fallacy.

A massive source of complaints revolves around the fact that there exists no viable archer role in the game, and has nothing to do with the pet dependency. Simply, the pet is a style of play and a flavor addition, just as is being a heavy warrior with a big weapon, a nimble assassin, a mage, or in this case an ARCHER. Yes, the issues with pets can be resolved by potential updating, but it doesn’t solve the inherent design flaw which forces a style of play upon players while denying them another. Pets being optional resolves both conflicts, especially if they are buffed such that beastmasters and pet users/pets in general retain their usefulness/utility while blatantly denying dedicated archer/DPS roles. The reason why pet removal has so much support is a combination of the notions that rangers in general want more viability/consistency, and players wanting to play a dedicated archer (or light/medium armor skirmisher in fewer cases).

I hope this helps explain the origins behind why so many players want the option to remove the pet. Simply, the alternative play styles need to be considered somewhere in the game, and that either means reworking thief to allow for a longbow/new weapon implementation while also reworking ranger to fix pets, or simply re-working the ranger class (which is obviously less work than both classes) to make literally everyone happy and resolve all of the current class problems.

Thanks for your dedication and I hope you take this post more seriously when trying to evaluate the credibility of the insight regarding pet removal/stowing.

All fair points. It seems a lot of people feel the same way. I have made sure, and will continue to, point out that the community wants a class that is like Ranger (archer) without pets, or even with more reliable pets.

I get the biggest issue seems to revolve around pets. I’ve also seen a couple others (utilities not being viable unless spec’d into them, burst vs sustain, traps, spirit clutter, etc.).

Thanks again for the red posts on the single most important forum topic in GW2 history (in my opinion). In addition to pets and a Slot skills I would also like to help the devs make rangers (myself included) very happy.

The Fix for Sword 1 and a new weapon for offset in Dungeons

Without changing anything sword 1 does but giving us a reliable button to push in order to cancel the animation chain that makes swords a hastle, I present:

Sword Offhand as a New Ranger Weapon
-Skill 4 of the sword is a zero cool down, zero damage skill that adds 1 stack of vulnerability. It’s main purpose is to allow us to hit 1,4,1,4,1,4 without delay so we can can avoid the chain animations on MH sword which hurt us in dungeons.
-Skill 5 of the sword could be a DoT or anything you’d like, I don’t care really. Please give us something to make sword MH less clunky in pve.

The second weapon is a doozy.

Staff as a useable Ranger Weapon

Changing all of our weapons to make us more balanced is a lot of work. Simply add staves to the list of ranger usuable weapons, but, make them melee DPS focused. This is a huge QOL buff to all rangers as most of our weapons seem designed more for PvP than pve.

And finally, either fix pets or return the damage they steal from us. As a ranger, a master of nature, why would I tame a companion that made me weaker? Answer, I doubt I would.

misterdevious.6482:

My personal preference is beastmaster first, druid second, wildman/woodsman third, archer fourth and it is quite clear that many people have those archetypes in the opposite order.

Had they named the class beast masters you’d be spot on. But we’re rangers which means we’re archers before pet handlers. My ranger in GW barely used her pet, but always had a bow.

Okay Allie, I’ll give you some emoticional feedback… I’m really angry now…
Last few days in wWw:

• Sick’Em: Reveal does not work. 4s is nothing to wait for thieves, instead they more likely to agressively attacking us… + 40% pet DMG does not mean anything when it can’t even hit it once…
• Protect Me!: THIS ONE DOES NOT WORK AT ALL It worth like putting a flower into the barrel of an M1 Abrams.
• Pets move 30% faster trait does not working too.
• We terribly lack survivality!
• DMG boost traits does not even working… Even the LRS’s distance dmg boost (which is just a terrible idea when everything appears in your face, and keeping distance would be enough selfrewarding by itself) does not working also. Same low damages.
• Hunter’s Shot is just lame. Aimbot of the game puts it on instant 3s CD instead of hitting the target. Not to mention this 3s Stealth also worthless.
• Due to lack of burst damages, the only way to keep it acceptable is to ignore most of survivality:
• Thieves press button 1 or 2 twice, 10k x 2, I’m down already within 2 seconds. They’re in stealth for kitten long, can’t do anything. Their jump in the face is a horrible mech here!
• The only class needs that Initiative system is RANGER
  GW1’s Assassins had a Chained skill system, that one was fair and deffendable, but still deadly!
  Warriors should also get back the adrenaline weapon skill useages, it was a very good & revolutionary methood. But this is an another topic…

I’m a really good balanced Ranger and I know I play it very well.
BUT! When I meet some solo roamers, they just go invulnerable, invisible, always refilling HP ~fully, and we have no skills to lock them down to damage!!
I’m shooting LB LRS between 1800-3000 depending on RNG, Zerg boost (if any) and foods that should be banned out from WvW. My TANK BUILD warrior does this damage twice in the same time!! Even my dagger+focus necro does nearly the same with conditions, but mutch faster.

So I don’t know how will this update effect us, but I can bet this will be far less than enough. Please Allie, make me wrong…

misterdevious.6482:

SkiTz.4590:

I don’t understand what makes it even sensible to have traits like “pets move faster” or pets do x, y ,z. in the skirmishing line. Like really? this trait literally might be used by 0.05% of the ranger player base

Theres literally 4-5 of these junk traits in every single line. And its such a waste. What on earth is the point of the beast master trait line? Literally every single trait line on ranger has beast-master traits in them….i don’t even.. just a big face palm..

If you want a melee pet to have a chance to hit moving players you want it to run faster… for example if you wanted to run axe/dagger, sword/torch w/traps… the agility training trait you complain about which is in skirmishing might be the only option for giving your pet needed pvp/wvw speed.

If all beastmaster traits were in the beastmaster line then you could only pick 3… not much variety, and the pet couldn’t get very powerful. Worse… if you wanted to do anything with your pet you would be forced to go into that line (which would be horrible). By spreading the traits out you can spec any way you want and still get some kind of benefit from your pets. The Mesmer pre/crit-damage line is similar… it has traits that generate clones and cause conditions with clones… not in the condition line and not in the illusion line. They have illusion/shatter traits all over. The pet is our profession mechanic so it is the same way.

My personal preference is beastmaster first, druid second, wildman/woodsman third, archer fourth and it is quite clear that many people have those archetypes in the opposite order.

The problem is that beast/minionmaster is an entire class identity unto itself. Shoehorning 2-3 different class designs into one body is what is causing a lot of our problems. We could be an archer/woodsman, a druid, or a beastmaster but we don’t have enough focus on any of them to perform those roles well. Beastmaster also suffers from the obvious limitations of the games unifiorm mob AI.

To my ears, a lot of this boils down to how the pet would work best if it was treated like a no-hand weapon slot that can soak up a few hits, but gets bogged down by the pet sprite needing to move independently around the field, instead of having a “fixed” position relative to the player or target.

Give more fields to ranger melee pets & increase the success rate for projectile finishers from 20% to 50% or higher. This lets" archers" capitalize more on pets engaged with enemies without having to rework the AI. Fire/Ice/Poison/Smoke fields seem pretty reasonable.

Let me fix the class on some “easy” steps.

1.Remove the pet ;they can not be fixed they will never be,they are a handicap and a source of frustration.

2.A new mechanic Preparations:

How they work?:
They will be the new ranger f1 f2 f3
They will grant a bonus to the user while under each preparation.
They will also work as a weapon modifiers,so using certain weapons under certain preparations will make them have added effects or work different.
They will have a cooldown like elementalist attunements swap of 15sec
The beastmaster trait line will be removed in exchange of the preparations trait line.

F1 Read the wind: Get a bonus to power (+60) and extra 300 range ,while under this preparation.Use your bows and offhands at max range without the need to trait.

F2 Marksman Wager:Get a bonus to precision(+60) and 25% increase speed.

F3 Expert Focus:Get a bonus to toughnes(+60) and a small hp regeneration.

Rework and delete traits related to pet.

Remove shouts:they dont belong to a petless ranger.

Bring back stances:i still can understand that something so integral to gw1 ranger didnt make it to gw2.Escape,Dodge,Natural stride,Storm Chaser,Whirling defense….

Revert spirit functionality to gw1,and bring back FROZEN SOIL, EoE,and maybe Toxicity.Gw1 spirits were a double edge sword and that made it interesting to use,gw2 spirits are boring and passive.

Bring back Smoke trap.Because traps.

And last but not lest where is my D-SHOT? .Seriously ,where is it?.

The gw2 ranger is a shadow and a joke of what gw1 ranger was.