Guild Wars 2

Chrispy.5641:

Chrispy.5641:

Okay, lets talk mechanics. You didn’t specify whether or not we could move when using this attack, or if we had to stand still. I’m going to assume we can move, since you specifically said this attack would make us more useful against moving targets, which, doesn’t really work well when you are standing still (if we stand still, what’s the point. I already pointed out how stupid it would be to have 2 stationary skills on one weapon). So…..say I’m up on a wall in WvW, and people are attacking. Well, if I can move, I’m not just going to stand there!

I am first going to target someone attacking the gate/wall. Then I am going to stand back and use all my damage increasing signets before charging the skill, while someone is targeted. Then, when its almost done, I will run up to the edge of the wall, and time my jump just before the skill goes off so the enemy is in my line of sight. Then…. BAM!!!, massive damage spike on someone, who literally didn’t see it coming. Oh look! You never even had the chance to “abuse” me while I still abused the skill to its maximum effect!

The Mechanics of the skill suck, no matter how you put it. Change the idea already!

Linnael.1069:

I think there was a misunderstanding, and I may have forgotten it in my original post, but I’m operating under the assumption that this attack will lock player movement. The fact that it is hitscan will mitigate the loss of effectiveness at maximum range due to strafing, which is what i mean by “will help against moving targets.”

Then the Longbow will have 2 skills that locks the player movement, and people complain about Barrage locking you in place already. 1 Skill? Fine. but having 2 skills that lock you in place, in a game about position and movement is unacceptable.

Atherakhia.4086:

That’s why you drop barrage in favor of it. Barrage is already a terrible skill due to all the negatives and no real reward. But on top of that, it’s counter intuitive to the weapon it’s attached to because it removes you ability to use another weapon skill.

So, since people complain about Barrage locking you in place already (I’m assuming that’s one of the things you mean by negatives), why Add or replace skills with one that does it anyways?

And Barrage isn’t counter intuitive to the weapon its attached to. the change made to Hunter’s Shot is, and is counter intuitive to how the entire profession plays, since it was changed after the fact to give stealth, with zero thought put out there for how that would affect skills already in progress like Barrage, or Traps, or maybe you had Bonfire down somewhere or used Hunter’s call before switching weapons, etc.

Stealth in general doesn’t work on Ranger because of skills like those. the usefulness of Barrage has nothing to do with that. If, skills that were used before you stealthed, didn’t break stealth, and only the skills used after you stealthed broke stealth, I think it would be a good change, that way, no effects are wasted (the stealth or sustain the ranger lays down before going into stealth)

Barrage needs to be removed because it brings you out of stealth and makes it impossible to use Hunter’s Shot while barrage is doing damage. That’s the problem. It seems like the only reason Hunter’s Shot was given to us was so we could cast barrage.

On top of that, Barrage does very poor damage (to the point retaliation actually reflects 50 to 75% of it), it applies a cripple but can’t be used to kite due to the channel time, and there’s nothing else on the weapon to really compliment it.

The difference between things like traps and other utilities breaking stealth is they aren’t on the same weapon. I can’t think of another weapon in the game that has 2 skills that can’t be used together. Can you? Traps breaking stealth hasn’t gotten in the way of Thieves, it isn’t an issue for Rangers. Swapping weapons while barrage is going is reaching.

So then you’ll complain about replacing a channeled spell with another skill that has a channel time. The difference would be a real reward and benefit for casting a ‘kill shot’ style attack against what minimal value you gained from casting barrage.

And another thing… when people ask for the Ranger to get kill shot, they’re only talking about the mechanics of the spell, not a carbon copy. No matter what, the Ranger’s would do 30% less damage to begin with even if it were an identical copy.

What the Ranger needs is some way to apply pressure to the target it’s trying to kill. Sustained damage and no way to elevate above what auto-attack provides isn’t effective. This is why people have been begging for a burst skill and a second off rapid fire since page one. This is why Rangers are laughed out of borderlands. This is why no sane guild is recruiting rangers of any skill level.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Dungeons are the only way to compare things in PvE. Damage is the only maxim that matters.

Yeah, we’re not going anywhere with this. You’ve bounced between “thief shortbow vs ranger shortbow” to “dungeons are what matter”/“damage over all” and it still doesn’t address the problems I’ve seen/experienced with the class.

(Cliff’s Notes: Pets aren’t as useful as they could be, longbow needs some tweaks, traits might need some adjusting to make more builds viable.)

Dungeons might be what you want to use as a yardstick, but no two dungeons are created equal. Heck, no two dungeon paths are created equal – that’s why CoF1 is/was such a popular quick grab for gold/loot. Some rooms are handled better by some classes, and rangers do have moments where they are rather useful. Particularly in conjunction with melee classes like warriors.

But I’ve also not really suffered “not enough damage” to finish something in a dungeon.

What I meant was that the ranger shortbow, especially after the nerfs he recieved, is weaker than his counterpart, the thief shortbow. I’m not aware of the exact numbers and I don’t know if this estimation comes from the point that the ranger is overall worse than the thief regarding the damageoutput.
But still, the ranger lacks of competitive damage. If we move away from the shortbow, there is only one weapon that his considered as “good” dps weapon, and that’s the sword.

The ranger has no role he can fill in dungeons. That’s the problem I want to address.
You are right if you say that you can do every content with your ranger. But you can’t do the content as effective as you could with other classes. Every weapon of the ranger has flaws, no weapon is a real power-weapon. The sword is the only one and it’s very hard to utilize the damage. The guard gets chosen because he is the only class in the game who can stack all defensive boons and most offensive boons while offering conditionremove and reflection. One guard alone can make up for the other members being head-on offensive. The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

And yes, all paths of all dungeons are different. Still, the only thing you need to complete any path is damage. You may need 1 defensive person (guard) to offer defense, but you complete the dungeon with damage. The reason why CoF p1 was abused was simply the fact that it offered more gold in completing this path over and over than running different paths.

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

Well the warrior will deal more damage than the ranger simply because the warrior can rotate between axe/mace and gs while the ranger has to sit on sword AA. The reason why a ranger is still better is because the 2 warriors would reach the might and vulnerability cap. The ranger offers a unique buff and spotter. This however oughtn’t hide the fact that the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage which gets hindered by a clunky playstyle.

Because of Eles, a team of 3 Eles has no further use of anyone contributing to more might, fury and vuln (not even the warrior). Therefore the Warrior is there not so much for his raw DPS since he’ll be outshined by another Ele or a Thief, but for his unique banner buffs, just like the Ranger’s unique buffs.

The sword auto-attack is clunky, I agree, as many have pointed out in many pages ago and has been included in the summary by Allie (although there’s no word on what’ll happen since this isn’t a new issue that’s been brought up).

But I don’t think profession balance means that every profession must have the same DPS output. Guardian isn’t chosen because of that (their sword+focus is also mostly reliant on auto-attack). At least currently Rangers have a justifiable role for their spot in a dungeon run (anyone besides Ele = lower DPS = chosen for utility).

Note: I’m not saying that there isn’t any room for improvement. There certainly is, but perhaps some of the things that need to be improved elude us, as some of the things that don’t.

DPS is all that matters in PvE. The utility you provide, if it’s a net loss in DPS because you as a player don’t bring your fair share, is meaningless. This is the problem with the example you’re bringing. Does spotter and storm spirit compensate the group for the loss in DPS you, being a Ranger, bring to the group?

1/3rd the damage a Ele has, 1/2 that of a Thief… that’s a sizable margin to make up. Especially when spotter is of questionable use given perma fury. The Ranger is something like 5th place for overall group DPS I believe was the consensus?

Is providing 10% more damage to 4 other people ever going to compensate the group enough for bringing the Ranger along in the first place? I don’t know…

The ranger in dungeon is really boring to play, pop your buff and auto-attack afk. A bit more dynamism would be nice. Anet should give ranger a real melee weapon (or offhand melee weapon) with more than one button to hit or some kind of incentive to swap weapons (like a trait that reduce weapon swap CD on crit, maybe with a % success chance or an ICD).
Torment is also another idea to increase ranger (sustained?) dps, it’s not a condition that is capped often in dungeons, but it could be bad (because one more condition) for PvP.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Dungeons are the only way to compare things in PvE. Damage is the only maxim that matters.

Yeah, we’re not going anywhere with this. You’ve bounced between “thief shortbow vs ranger shortbow” to “dungeons are what matter”/“damage over all” and it still doesn’t address the problems I’ve seen/experienced with the class.

(Cliff’s Notes: Pets aren’t as useful as they could be, longbow needs some tweaks, traits might need some adjusting to make more builds viable.)

Dungeons might be what you want to use as a yardstick, but no two dungeons are created equal. Heck, no two dungeon paths are created equal – that’s why CoF1 is/was such a popular quick grab for gold/loot. Some rooms are handled better by some classes, and rangers do have moments where they are rather useful. Particularly in conjunction with melee classes like warriors.

But I’ve also not really suffered “not enough damage” to finish something in a dungeon.

What I meant was that the ranger shortbow, especially after the nerfs he recieved, is weaker than his counterpart, the thief shortbow. I’m not aware of the exact numbers and I don’t know if this estimation comes from the point that the ranger is overall worse than the thief regarding the damageoutput.
But still, the ranger lacks of competitive damage. If we move away from the shortbow, there is only one weapon that his considered as “good” dps weapon, and that’s the sword.

The ranger has no role he can fill in dungeons. That’s the problem I want to address.
You are right if you say that you can do every content with your ranger. But you can’t do the content as effective as you could with other classes. Every weapon of the ranger has flaws, no weapon is a real power-weapon. The sword is the only one and it’s very hard to utilize the damage. The guard gets chosen because he is the only class in the game who can stack all defensive boons and most offensive boons while offering conditionremove and reflection. One guard alone can make up for the other members being head-on offensive. The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

And yes, all paths of all dungeons are different. Still, the only thing you need to complete any path is damage. You may need 1 defensive person (guard) to offer defense, but you complete the dungeon with damage. The reason why CoF p1 was abused was simply the fact that it offered more gold in completing this path over and over than running different paths.

The issue is the lack of burst available to weapons and no real rotation for weapons for the Ranger class. Shortbow’s (and Longbow’s) raw damage from auto attack blows the auto attack for Warrior and Thief out of the water by a sizable margin (300dps or so iirc. And just for the bows… their melee makes our damage laughable at best with a ranged weapon). The issue is the Ranger doesn’t improve their raw DPS by much using these weapons whereas a Warrior or Thief has very large burst potential and perma poison/burn etc.

This is where ANet’s sustained model has lost touch with reality. If all anyone did all day was auto attack with #1, then yea the Ranger isn’t doing too bad. The issue is every other class can supplement their DPS by an enormous margin and the Ranger can’t.

Atherakhia.4086:

Barrage needs to be removed because it brings you out of stealth and makes it impossible to use Hunter’s Shot while barrage is doing damage. That’s the problem. It seems like the only reason Hunter’s Shot was given to us was so we could cast barrage.

On top of that, Barrage does very poor damage (to the point retaliation actually reflects 50 to 75% of it), it applies a cripple but can’t be used to kite due to the channel time, and there’s nothing else on the weapon to really compliment it.

The difference between things like traps and other utilities breaking stealth is they aren’t on the same weapon. I can’t think of another weapon in the game that has 2 skills that can’t be used together. Can you? Traps breaking stealth hasn’t gotten in the way of Thieves, it isn’t an issue for Rangers. Swapping weapons while barrage is going is reaching.

So then you’ll complain about replacing a channeled spell with another skill that has a channel time. The difference would be a real reward and benefit for casting a ‘kill shot’ style attack against what minimal value you gained from casting barrage.

And another thing… when people ask for the Ranger to get kill shot, they’re only talking about the mechanics of the spell, not a carbon copy. No matter what, the Ranger’s would do 30% less damage to begin with even if it were an identical copy.

What the Ranger needs is some way to apply pressure to the target it’s trying to kill. Sustained damage and no way to elevate above what auto-attack provides isn’t effective. This is why people have been begging for a burst skill and a second off rapid fire since page one. This is why Rangers are laughed out of borderlands. This is why no sane guild is recruiting rangers of any skill level.

(numbered by paragraph)

1) If we were given Hunter’s Shot just so we could cast barrage, then why don’t all professions have stealth on a weapon with that long of a cast time? Go on ahead and say “Well, that’s other professions, we’re talking about Ranger”, but you’re argument for us having a killshot style skill is the same as my example argument for stealth,…because other professions have one, and Ranger doesn’t.

2) And Retaliation reflects 150% of the damage Hunter’s Call does. It also reflects 125% of the damage that low damage skills like Traps and Bonfire does. Should those also be replaced too, because Retaliation reflect a base damage number instead of damage as a percentage done? Should all the other skills that other professions do be replaced because of that? That sounds more like a problem with Retaliation itself instead of a problem with Ranger skills.

3) And you still refuse to accept that Barrage was on the weapon first, probably because “B-But, STEALTH!”. No, not but stealth.

4) Again, Killshot style skill is a burst. If Rangers are supposed to be a sustain class, then why do you keep insisting on what is clearly a BURST skill?

5) Except that we have signets that, like I stated earlier, would make our damage far exceed what any other class could do with the same burst skill, even with a 30% damage reduction. I hate to break it to you, but, that’s too strong. Haven’t you seen out 1 shot Maul attack?

And, go on ahead and argue that its a 1 trick pony. Well, it doesn’t matter. Anet is going to balance based on our maximum damage potential (as I said earlier), and will make it to where our “killshot style” skill is never that strong. It will be nerfed to uselessness unless you bother to maximize your damage (which you should be doing anyways, by for example, combining the damage from barrage with your other longbow skills)

6) And Barrage does that. It deals damage and applies Pressure while you are using other attacks. Toch and Warhorn both do that, and traps do that. A Burst doesn’t do that. There is no pressure from burst. Seriously, prove to me that burst applies any pressure at all.

Another thing you keep forgetting about Barrage is that it is going off while you are using other skills. That combined with the cripple is what pressure is. You are supposed to be adding the damage from that to the damage you are dealing with your other attacks. I believe I explained that in a previous thread, a thread that you were oddly silent on after I made this point. I also explained why Rapid fire does about the same damage as our Auto Attack does, because the weapon is supposed to be rewarding damage at maximum range. If you give us a high damage burst skill that works at any range (like what you keep suggesting), then the weapon will no longer reward fighting at maximum range.

So, in conclusion before I hand the argument back to you….

FIND A DIFFERENT WAY TO CHANGE RAPID FIRE! YOUR SUGGESTION IS A BAD ONE!

I know I’m a little late to the party, but has anyone compiled a list of PvE encounters where pets are not just useless, but a liability? I’m thinking Jade Maw, Subject Alpha, that kind of thing.

I don’t mind having a pet, but they really need some improvement, and the fact that some fights are legitimately more difficult with our un-stowable pets is a real bummer for rangers who already get kicked from dungeon groups simply for having that paw icon. It really discourages new rangers from trying any high-end content.

@Allie
What do you and the devs think of traits that could completely change the behavior of some weapon skills? For exemple reducing the dodge/leap on Hornet Sting/Monarch Leap to near 0 while adding a new effect, or reverse the order => Monarch Leap first, then Hornet Sting like somepeople asked.
This would mean creating new weapon skills but it could also become a specificity of the ranger, having traits that change weapons style.

Janvs.4803:

I know I’m a little late to the party, but has anyone compiled a list of PvE encounters where pets are not just useless, but a liability? I’m thinking Jade Maw, Subject Alpha, that kind of thing.

I don’t mind having a pet, but they really need some improvement, and the fact that some fights are legitimately more difficult with our un-stowable pets is a real bummer for rangers who already get kicked from dungeon groups simply for having that paw icon. It really discourages new rangers from trying any high-end content.

The actual problem isn’t being a ranger. The problem is that most of the rangers play the class in a bad way or with other words they don’t play it in the most efficient way, just pew pew from a mile a way and let the bear tank stuff. I talk about pve ofc.
Their unique buffs are nice, despite their lower base damage compared to others (including pet), but with Spotter and Frost spirit the overall party dps is increased.
However the most efficient way currently is to play with sword/x, but that weapon just kills the fluid nature of ranger. The root and the nearly unbreakable attack chain that makes you unable to dodge and the slow #2 skill which has an unnecessary precast, which is painful to use with the auto attack.
And ofc the pet can die from everything, thus you lost a big part of your damage if you can’t swap out before it dies and even if you do you lost your best dps option (jaguar) for 20 seconds and go with a worse pet. Imagine it, you miss a dodge and a message pops up, “now you cant use 100blades/backstab/whirling wrath/etc for 20s”.

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
Increase ranger survival by adding traits that produce weakness.
Goal of Proposal
Ranger is supposed to be steady dmg dealer with out burst and to do that they need high survival and one way to get that is debuff opponent instead ranger him self. At the moment ranger cant have steady supply of protection to defend him/her self from other classes/bosses that have access ability to burst/one hit kill mechanic , so counter this it would be good have ways to lower dmg our opponents can do to us and our pet/party members.
Proposal Functionality
-Adept/Master trait on skirmish tree that produce weakness to target on crit.
-Minor/Adept/Master trait on WS tree that produce weakness to target when poison is applied.
-Adept/Master trait on BM tree that produce aoe weakness on pet swap.
-Add weakness on GS aa line on 1st or 2nd strike(might need evade moved from 3rd strike to keep things in balance(swoop would be good choice like some one suggested;))).
Associated Risks
-Too much is to much for sure.
-Might turn condi builds even stronger option.
-Might turn BM builds op as ranger can build on even more on survival and let pet deal dmg.

Atherakhia.4086:

On top of that, Barrage does very poor damage (to the point retaliation actually reflects 50 to 75% of it), it applies a cripple but can’t be used to kite due to the channel time, and there’s nothing else on the weapon to really compliment it.

Well, the damage is actually pretty neat in dungeons. Stack, use LB#5 on you and switch to sword or greatsword. barrage will tick for 1k – 2k.

I do think the LB needs something like a killshot but I don’t know if I would change Rapid Fire for that. A killshot can be dodged too easy which would nullify your damage. But it is neglectable in WvW.

Chrispy.5641:

(numbered by paragraph)

1) If we were given Hunter’s Shot just so we could ….

2) And Retaliation reflects 150% of the damage Hunter’s Call does. It also reflects 125% of the damage that low dam…

3) And you still refuse to accept that Barrage was on the weapon first, probably because “B-But, STEALTH!”. No, not but stealth.

4) Again, Killshot style skill is a burst. If Rangers are supposed to be a sustain class, then why do you keep insisting on what is clearly a BURST skill?

5) Except that we hav….

6) And Barrage does tha…

So, in conclusion before I hand the argument back to you….

FIND A DIFFERENT WAY TO CHANGE RAPID FIRE! YOUR SUGGESTION IS A BAD ONE!

1.) No idea what you’re getting at. I’m simply saying Hunter’s Shot and Barrage can’t work together. If you’re implying I’m a fan of Hunter’s Shot, you’re also mistaken. I’m convinced they came up with Remorseless first and hunter’s shot second just to reset it.

2.) Retaliation is overpowered. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that the way Barrage interacts with it isn’t also broken. You’re really not making a point much like most of your arguments.

3.) Again, you’re not making any point. Who cares which came first? I’m simply saying the longbow, as it is right now, doesn’t work because 2 skills on it don’t interact with each other. I’m also pointing out that if I were to change one of the skills, I’d choose the one least valuable to the class as a whole and the one least complimentary to the weapon to change. Thus Barrage.

4.) Because the sustain model set forth by ANet simply can’t work. If they aren’t willing to adjust the class to fit in the game they’ve made then this whole thread is 100% useless because the class will never be functional given the way they’ve designed it. Need proof? Look how well it’s doing now trying to fit into ANet’s design formula. I keep bringing burst and AE up because ANet needs to realize that the sustained DPS model will not work. EVER.

5.) Oh absolutely. Signets would make the skill very powerful. Thus why the MECHANIC is being discussed and not its damage. Just like we’ve discussed the MECHANICS behind signets, their possible need for a nerf, and the removal of the 30pt marks trait.

6.) No, they don’t do that Chrispy and if you’d stop being a troll for 1 post in a row you’d realize that. If traps, torch, horn, our elites, and barrage applied the pressure you think they did, this class would have something functional and useful to offer WvW. Guess what, it doesn’t! Thus the reason this CDI thread even exists in the first place!

7.) Barrage’s damage is inconsequential as I mentioned above. The cripple is also of limited value given the delay in its cast and the mobile way this game is played. The only person barrage actually does pressure is the Ranger who cast it.

8.) And the point you keep missing is the longbow is an incredibly boring and ineffective weapon to use. Again, if you want proof of this, simply read the thread instead of trolling it. At some point you’re going to have to accept that the reason this thread was created and the Ranger class won by a landslide is because it simply doesn’t fit in the game ANet has made. Number tweaks and trait shuffling isn’t going to solve anything for this class. Another thing you fail to realize is Rapid Fire has no funcitonal use at max range. Removing 1 second off the channel makes it a DPS increase at any range, and it would hardly be considered a burst skill by anyone.

The problem I’m having with your Chrispy is you’re too busy trolling and not interested at all in actually debating anything. If you don’t like the idea, your solution is to troll it. Not try and explain why the suggestion is bad. Rapid Fire having 1 second removed from the channel is an excellent idea if you’re trying to make the class functional. If you’re goal, which it seems to be the case, is for this class to maintain having 0 value in WvW and certainly no functional power option, then so be it. I’d ask that you ignore suggestions that impact WvW and power builds though instead of trolling them with no real evidence or ability to debate the merrits of the suggestion though.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Atherakhia.4086:

On top of that, Barrage does very poor damage (to the point retaliation actually reflects 50 to 75% of it), it applies a cripple but can’t be used to kite due to the channel time, and there’s nothing else on the weapon to really compliment it.

Well, the damage is actually pretty neat in dungeons. Stack, use LB#5 on you and switch to sword or greatsword. barrage will tick for 1k – 2k.

I do think the LB needs something like a killshot but I don’t know if I would change Rapid Fire for that. A killshot can be dodged too easy which would nullify your damage. But it is neglectable in WvW.

Rapid Fire has an identity crisis. You either use it as a way to deal damage an sub-max range as Chrispy so trollishly tried to say, or you don’t use it. This is why it needs a SLIGHT adjustment in the damage it does or the channel time for the skill. I wouldn’t remove it entirely in favor of a kill shot style skill. Thus why I want barrage removed.

Barrage would be a great skill if it did more damage, or applied bleeds, or didn’t have the channel. But to be honest, it kind of needs to do all of this for it to ever be useful on a power weapon the way the game is currently set up, and that’s a bit much if you ask me. I’d sooner make it a utility skill, but the problem with it being a utility skill is the overlap it would have with spike trap. Thus my suggestion on page 1.

If the goal is to pretend it does compliment the weapon it’s on then there are ways to make it more useful without changing it that dramatically.

For example, triple the damage per wave but stagger the waves more and only have 1/3rd of them. Increase the cripple per tick so the targets will remain crippled the whole duration. Immobilize all targets on the first wave of the channel.

That gives you the same DPS, but higher burst.
It removes the issues with retaliation causing so much backlash killing the Ranger.
It gives it more valuable CC so it’s worth having the cast time and cooldown.

I use the Longbow in a few different builds, here are some of the things I use Rapid Fire for:

• Thieves (arrows tracking through stealth)
• Combo Fields (2x the chances)
• Buffing Pet before F2 (Rampage as One, crits grant might trait, crits grant might sigil, crits grant might food)
• Confusion (Every skill activation hurts)
• Enemies lined up really nice for Piercing Arrows, some close some far.
• When the enemy is too close to receive the bonus damage on skill 1.

Being able to hit rapidly with Rapid Fire or Barrage may be punishing against Retaliation, but being able to hit rapidly is essential for some effects.

For me both longbow and greatsword this good mostly because game with these weapons and only ranger from the beginning of the game

Longbow : 1 skill ’s damage is better than before I do not see that changing for

                 2 skill should take more damage but is still an interesting skill

                 3 skill find interesting stay invisible increases the survival of the ranger

                 4 skill think cool how the opponent pull away from me

                 5 skill think much more efficient would be nice to have a little more damage

Greatsword : 1 skill might take a bit more damage since it is a heavy two-handed weapon

                       2 very cool skill this skill , which has complicated this close to catch the opponent and could blast

                       3 swoop skill helps a lot in bringing the enemy besides being leap

                       skill 4 ’s interesting how the defense works helped me many times

                       5 skill not think so helpful this little skill to stun and daze with a very large cooldown and take little damage

Atherakhia.4086:

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

Well the warrior will deal more damage than the ranger simply because the warrior can rotate between axe/mace and gs while the ranger has to sit on sword AA. The reason why a ranger is still better is because the 2 warriors would reach the might and vulnerability cap. The ranger offers a unique buff and spotter. This however oughtn’t hide the fact that the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage which gets hindered by a clunky playstyle.

Because of Eles, a team of 3 Eles has no further use of anyone contributing to more might, fury and vuln (not even the warrior). Therefore the Warrior is there not so much for his raw DPS since he’ll be outshined by another Ele or a Thief, but for his unique banner buffs, just like the Ranger’s unique buffs.

The sword auto-attack is clunky, I agree, as many have pointed out in many pages ago and has been included in the summary by Allie (although there’s no word on what’ll happen since this isn’t a new issue that’s been brought up).

But I don’t think profession balance means that every profession must have the same DPS output. Guardian isn’t chosen because of that (their sword+focus is also mostly reliant on auto-attack). At least currently Rangers have a justifiable role for their spot in a dungeon run (anyone besides Ele = lower DPS = chosen for utility).

Note: I’m not saying that there isn’t any room for improvement. There certainly is, but perhaps some of the things that need to be improved elude us, as some of the things that don’t.

DPS is all that matters in PvE. The utility you provide, if it’s a net loss in DPS because you as a player don’t bring your fair share, is meaningless. This is the problem with the example you’re bringing. Does spotter and storm spirit compensate the group for the loss in DPS you, being a Ranger, bring to the group?

1/3rd the damage a Ele has, 1/2 that of a Thief… that’s a sizable margin to make up. Especially when spotter is of questionable use given perma fury. The Ranger is something like 5th place for overall group DPS I believe was the consensus?

Is providing 10% more damage to 4 other people ever going to compensate the group enough for bringing the Ranger along in the first place? I don’t know…

The DPS loss isn’t meaningless. A lot of encounters in an organised play doesn’t even necessarily require a full 5-man to end the dungeon faster (look at the world records for AC path 1 run, Sorrow’s Embrace path 1). The Mesmer’s portaling, the thieves stealthing and their mobility allows them to finish the dungeon faster due to a very marginal loss of DPS in big encounters (compensated by the Eles’ ice bows and FGS).

So in those big encounters, in fact, the Ranger will be expected to use both the ice bows and FGS and the DPS will increase, fight over faster not slower.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

misterdevious.6482:

I use the Longbow in a few different builds, here are some of the things I use Rapid Fire for:

• Thieves (arrows tracking through stealth)
• Combo Fields (2x the chances)
• Buffing Pet before F2 (Rampage as One, crits grant might trait, crits grant might sigil, crits grant might food)
• Confusion (Every skill activation hurts)
• Enemies lined up really nice for Piercing Arrows, some close some far.
• When the enemy is too close to receive the bonus damage on skill 1.

Being able to hit rapidly with Rapid Fire or Barrage may be punishing against Retaliation, but being able to hit rapidly is essential for some effects.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s obvious to me that there needs to be some improvement to the longbow to make non-AA skills more appealing, but I don’t think that removing Barrage and/or Rapid Fire is the answer.

So here’s another possible idea (parts borrowed from other ideas that have been previously posted)…

Specific Game Mode
PvX (possibly split skills in some cases)

Proposal Overview
Improve longbow viability in general by making its 2-5 skills more appealing than just 1-spamming through skill modification (not replacement).

Goal of Proposal
The goal of this proposal is to stop making longbow feel like we’re being penalized for close combat, but instead reward max range through a bonus; make skills on the longbow more appealing to use during normal combat scenarios; and increase the Ranger’s ability to maintain or regain range advantage.

Proposal Functionality
This proposal includes changes to multiple different skills.

1, Change the functionality of Long Range Shot so that it no longer has damage adjusted by range. Instead, just a flat steady damage level regardless of range. (I’ll talk about granting bonus damage at max range later on).

2, Make it so that at close ranges, Long Range Shot is automatically replaced by another skill, Close Quarters Shot, which deals slightly less damage in favor of adding a cripple effect to the attacks. This skill would automatically replace Long Range Shot at distance ranges of 0-600, and would automatically be replaced by Long Range Shot again when distance range to target opens back up to 600+.

3, Make Hunter’s Shot grant swiftness to the master instead of the pet, or possibly to both.

4, Slightly increase the pushback range effect on Point Blank Shot for distance ranges of less than 600 in oprder to improve its functionality as a gap opener. Also perhaps decrease its cooldown. Also perhaps make it an AoE fan effect instead of single-line.

5, Remove the requirement of remaining still while channeling from the Barrage skill. If a movement penalty is absolutely required for balance (I don’t think its necessary or justified given the skill’s current lackluster damage potential), then make it inflict cripple upon the Ranger when cast, instead of requiring us to fully self-root. Perhaps make it a 0.5 second cripple that is reapplied every 0.5 seconds that the skill is channeled, but we can still break the channeling by canceling the skill partway through if it becomes more advantageous to have full movement than to complete the skill.

Alternatively, could reduce channeling time to 1.25 seconds, leave self-root requirement in place, reduce number of strike waves to 6, and reduce cooldown to 15. This would result in roughly the same overall DPM possible, but would allow greater mobility and more tactical use.

6, Possibly increase the damage per strike for Barrage so it is more rewarding to use even with the risks of Retaliation and Reflection.

7, Increase projectile speed on the longbow’s attacks so they cannot be so easily dodged without actual active dodge or evasion so that max range no longer simultaneously acts to both boost damage and negate that boost through poor accuracy.

8, Make it so that all longbow attacks automatically receive a +15% damage increase when attacking from a distance of 1000 or more. This would boost all 5 skills, so would not result in current state of making AA more favorable to other skills when at max range.

Associated Risks
Potential to increase Ranger burst damage, depending on how the numbers are tweaked, so this could run slightly contrary to the design philosophy for the class.

Long Range Shot changes could possibly justify similar changes to the Mesmer’s Spatial Surge skill.

Increasing the pushback distance #4 could have more impact than just improved gap opening, due to the way that pushback acts as a sort of mini-stun against the target for a duration equal to how long it takes the target to travel the push distance.

The damage bonus of 15% at 1000+ range might be too high, so numbers might have to be tweaked to balance it out.

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

You can’t have both. Either max. Staff damage or max. summoned weapon damage. And still, LH isn’t better than a warrior who can utilize his combo.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

You can’t have both. Either max. Staff damage or max. summoned weapon damage. And still, LH isn’t better than a warrior who can utilize his combo.

You do not use both. Even a Staff ele who’s there for the lava font (dmg + fire field), when the situation warrants for an ice bow, the not max damage of the ice bow #4 will still be much more damaging than a warrior’s full combo.

And still on the “not having both”, exactly: so the Staff max damage doesn’t even have to go for Ice Bow (but can also use Ice Bow when they need to) and already outdamages a warrior.

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Not true because Lava Font is scarier than HB and Eles deal a massive damage still with LH.

You can’t have both. Either max. Staff damage or max. summoned weapon damage. And still, LH isn’t better than a warrior who can utilize his combo.

You do not use both. Even a Staff ele who’s there for the lava font (dmg + fire field), when the situation warrants for an ice bow, the not max damage of the ice bow #4 will still be much more damaging than a warrior’s full combo.

And still on the “not having both”, exactly: so the Staff max damage doesn’t even have to go for Ice Bow (but can also use Ice Bow when they need to) and already outdamages a warrior.

Ok, so ele is better than a warrior. That just underlines my initial post that the ranger deals not enough damage to be competitive.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

What I meant was that the ranger shortbow, especially after the nerfs he recieved, is weaker than his counterpart, the thief shortbow. I’m not aware of the exact numbers and I don’t know if this estimation comes from the point that the ranger is overall worse than the thief regarding the damage output.

But you didn’t touch the assertion I made – in a straight up fight between one thief with shortbow alone and one ranger with shortbow alone, no weapon swaps and no help? A skilled ranger is probably going to come out on top. Give them other weapons, probably the thief due to their pretty high burst potential. But shortbow? I don’t see it.

But still, the ranger lacks of competitive damage. If we move away from the shortbow, there is only one weapon that his considered as “good” dps weapon, and that’s the sword.

I find that a problem, but primarily a problem which tells me things need to get toned down rather than us toned up. Though if it winds up easier, tone us up some but primarily I’d much rather see us be useful more than damaging. Our ability to survive a lot of things runs into the problem of us not doing enough damage often enough to finish a fight.

But in a group scenario, it’s more . . . to me . . . about making groups find us useful rather than “not a burden”.

The ranger has no role he can fill in dungeons. That’s the problem I want to address.
You are right if you say that you can do every content with your ranger. But you can’t do the content as effective as you could with other classes. Every weapon of the ranger has flaws, no weapon is a real power-weapon. The sword is the only one and it’s very hard to utilize the damage. The guard gets chosen because he is the only class in the game who can stack all defensive boons and most offensive boons while offering condition remove and reflection. One guard alone can make up for the other members being head-on offensive. The ele deals good damage but FGS is what makes him dominant. If he can’t use FGS, he will be slower than the warrior.

Every weapon of other classes have flaws too, so let’s not pull that card.

And yes, all paths of all dungeons are different. Still, the only thing you need to complete any path is damage.

Actually the only thing you need is persistence with a good group. A subpar group could still do it, if they’re willing to keep trying. What people want is to do it with no snags and finish in record times.

(What I want is to finish them all once and never go back unless I find someone doing a path I had fun in.)

The ranger needs tuning, but I do really want to stop trying to measure the class against all the others and go “the damage isn’t as good as X” or “they don’t do Y as well as Z”. I’d much rather we have our own identity and usefulness outside of . . . well “moar DPS!”.

If we’re going to be “the class with the pet” then . . . let’s be that, and be exceptional over that rather than “warrior/thief DPS/burst with a pet on the side”.

I dare say this ‘CDI’ has gone on too long. What little interaction we had seems to be all but lost, and judging from the last Ready Up things are probably not going to get better anytime soon (scrim with 0 rangers and a ‘showcase’ at the end with a thief winning a 2 v 1).

Mulling over a more elaborate offering relating to weapon skills, but let me put this out there in patchnote form:

Long Range Shot – Ranger Longbow Skill #1. Damage has been normalized to the previous 500-1000 value at all ranges. Each hit on foes at range 500+ inflicts cripple (1 second). Each hit on foes a range 1,000+ inflicts vulnerability (1 stack; 7 seconds)

Purpose of Change: Normalizing damage removes the need to remain at maximum range for optimal DPS, disrupting party cohesion. Improves the longbow’s functionality as a standoff weapon by rapidly re-applying short cripples until foes are within 500 range. Offers new skirmisher-style threat by building and maintaining vulnerability stacks against foes that are unwilling or unable to close with the Ranger.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Removing Spirits would be a pretty big change to the class. Additionally, they are part of the “spirit” (sorry, had to) of the Ranger. I do think the idea to add it to the pet is interesting, though I’m not sure how it really makes sense (the pets aren’t the ones drawing from nature, it’s the Ranger).

Do you have any thoughts or ideas that wouldn’t necessarily remove them, but maybe help to lessen the body blocking as you said?

Yes, there is a way: make them not function as summoned creatures anymore:

1. Make the spirits smaller so they don’t occlude vision. You can maybe make them a bit brighter in colour so they’re still visible and identifiable.

2. Remove the nametag and make them untargetable by enemies. Also serves to reduce screen clutter and wear and tear on our Tab keys looking for the ranger. Enemies will still be able to see that a spirit is in play by seeing both the spirit (albeit in mini-form) and by seeing the buff icon on the enemies

3. In exchange, since spirits can no longer be targeted and killed by enemies, the passive effect should be made weaker to balance them out.

However, this doesn’t solve the main problem with spirits, which is that they’re “one of those builds” (like minionmancer or signet warrior) which just rely on passive buffs and/or AI, and that makes for boring play both for the person playing the build and for anyone fighting them. I much preferred Spirits as they functioned in GW1, which was an unremovable effectthat affected both friends and foes equally. This enabled preparation and tactical play: you both got the effect (whether positive or negative), the difference is your team had prepared for it, so you were changing the rules of the battlefield in your favour.

Sadly I don’t think this would work as well in GW2 a. because the game doesn’t have as many rules/moving parts for spirits to modify in that way and b. because the pvp is much more pug-friendly by design and you can’t really expect solo arena teammates to be prepared for your build.

However, there is one way you can make GW2 spirits function a bit more like GW1 spirits, and that is:

4. Make the ACTIVE effect affect both friends and foes. This promotes active, thoughtful, and tactical play on behalf of the ranger, as they have to decide when activating the spirit’s active is in their favour. For instance, if the ranger just got jumped by a thief, maybe activating Sun Spirit’s active is a good idea, as he/she won’t mind getting blinded too in exchange for avoiding the thief’s burst. If an enemy is only a hair’s breadth from getting downed but you just can’t do that last little bit of damage, maybe activating the Storm Spirit’s active is just the burst the ranger needs to finish the enemy off – be careful, don’t also kill an ally by accident! If your team has a downed teammate but the enemy doesn’t, OF COURSE you’re gonna activate Spirit of Nature’s active to revive them, and you don’t care that the enemies will also get a minor heal.

5. In exchange, make active area effect larger and reduce recharges on actives. Just to make sure that the actives are THERE when you need them, as use will be completely opportunistic and twitch-based (which is also why you have to reduce the duration of the activation animations – the skill might be instant but the spirit itself sure takes its sweet kitten time!) so if you’re gonna force then ranger and their teammates to eat Call Lightnings when activating a utility skill you gotta at least let them have the skill whenever they need it!

tl;dr: make spirits completely untargetable, reduce power of spirit passive effects, increase area of effect and reduce recharge of active effects in exchange for them affecting both friend and foe

1. Barrage: It is the only way in WWW to get some Hit for loot. Somehow we rangers get mutch less loot. Even me getting a lot of badges and loot meanwhile playing on Warrior, so I just don’t get it…
2. WWW last night: Thieve gone stealth all the time, only came up for one ~12k hit time to time…
3. In WWW the 1200 range is nothing. How should we hit the teleporters?

Atherakhia.4086:

2.) …But that doesn’t change the simple fact that the way Barrage interacts with it isn’t also broken. You’re really not making a point much like most of your arguments.

3.) Again, you’re not making any point.

4.) Because the sustain model set forth by ANet simply can’t work….. I keep bringing burst and AE up because ANet needs to realize that the sustained DPS model will not work. EVER.

5.) …. Thus why the MECHANIC is being discussed and not its damage. Just like we’ve discussed the MECHANICS behind signets…..

6.) No, they don’t do that Chrispy and if you’d stop being a TROLL for 1 post in a row … If traps, torch, horn, our elites, and barrage applied the pressure you think they did, this class would have … useful to offer WvW. Guess what, it doesn’t! Thus the reason this CDI thread even exists in the first place!

7.) Barrage’s damage is inconsequential as I mentioned above. The cripple is also of limited value given the delay in its cast and the mobile way this game is played….

2) Not making a point to what? Do I need to spell it out? You complained that Retaliation reflects too much of the damage Barrage does, so I countered that it also reflects alot of the damage that many of our other skills do. Then I said that its the same way with other professions, and that this is a problem with Retaliation, not with Barrage.

I’m pretty sure the point was made, whether you want to listen to it or not.

3) Yeah, because stealth always wins automatically over all our other skills, thats why it should stay, and barrage should go? Do you have any other reason why Hunter’s Shot is more valuable…you know, counter to the reasons I already stated why it interferes with alot more of our skills than just barrage. (oh hey, there’s another point that you refuse to acknowledge!)

4) Sustained works just fine for me in PvE, and WvW (and even though I don’t play PvP, the most popular Ranger builds are currently a sustain build). Traps (our AE) also works just fine for me. Using the Longbow for its intended purpose (max. Range) works fine for me as well. Do you have any examples for why Sustained doesn’t work? If you want to bring the whole “Dps is all that matters” into the argument, go on ahead, but DPS is not all that matters. I can run through dungeons just fine in sustain and defensive builds, I run with other people who think the same, and I don’t need the 1% Top, World Record Dungeon Runners to come up to me and tell me otherwise.

5) And I’ve discussed the mechanics behind the ‘Killshot Style’ Skill, and I keep saying it won’t work because of how Signets are designed. I also talked how this killshot style skill will make you stop to cast, and having 2 skills like that on Longbow is a bad thing. I also stated that the Longbow is a weapon that rewards playing at MAXIMUM RANGE, and this killshot style skill, if implemented, will no longer reward playing at maximum range. Seriously, I’ve been talking about mechanics inbetween what you have been calling pointless points.

6) Yes, Atherakhia, They all do, and it is the way I play in WvW. I use traps, Torch and Warhorn(when attacking), and Longbow(when defending) to put pressure on Enemies. I would explain how I do it (for the fifth time in this thread), but you don’t seem to want to listen. And the CDI exists because the Ranger is less than Optimal, not because we need to dramatize every aspect of the class, and completely overhaul everything about it.

7) Wait, an extra 1-2K damage per second on top of what you are dealing with your weapon is inconsequential? So is the Cripple? That damage is enough extra damage to force enemies to get the heck out of the barrage circle, or risk dying, from the inconsequential 12-24K damage you are applying in addition to your other weapons.

8)…

8.) …Nothing useful other than TROLL

That doesn’t even deserve a response.

Ironically when Ferocity will pop up, Ranger will be the least affected class thanks to the pet.

Alrighty folks, I’ve come up with my comprehensive rework. It’s probably not perfect as I’m not a real master of the Beastmastery/support ranger builds, and I’m willing to make adjustments/revisions.

Class Adjustments:
- Signet effects by default apply to the player (Remove Signet of the Beastmaster).
- Pets scale off of both player level and stats.
- Improve/Increase pet attack hitbox size/improve AI.
- Ordering a pet cancels its idle animation to proceed with the orders given to it.
- Pets’ base mobility increased by 25%
- Peaceful/Aggressive Toggle on F4.
- Switch pet toggle on F5.
- “Guard” utility skill removed. Placed on F6. Range: 2000
- “Relentless” ability added: Pets may be stowed permanently. The ranger receives a non-removable boon which grants him a 30% increase to damage to his attacks. Pets cannot be stowed or summoned while in combat.
- Pet F2 base skill cooldowns reduced by 20%.
- Increase base projectile speed for longbow attacks by 50%.
- Combine spirit effects with pets. Spirit skills renamed after various animals.
- -Beastmastery trait ranks increase pet stats more than currently.

TRAIT PROGRESSION CHANGES

Marksmanship:

Adept: Opening Strike: You and your pets have Opening Strike (Combined with Alpha Training (Master Marksmanship)).

Master: Eagle Eye: Replaced Alpha Training with Eagle Eye (Marksmanship X). Removed Eagle Eye from optional traits.

Grandmaster: Stance of Storms: You and your pet gain swiftness and fury (5s) when applying Opening Strike. Apply Opening Strike while attacking from stealth. Remove Remorseless (Marksmanship XII).

Skirmishing:

Adept: Precise Strike: Opening Strike Always critical hits (Moved from Grandmaster Marksmanship).

Master: Hunter’s Tactics: Replace Furious Grip with Hunter’s Tactics (Grandmaster Skirmishing)

Grandmaster: Peak Strength: Increase damage by 10% when health is above 90% (Wilderness Survival Grandmaster).

Wilderness Survival:

Adept: Natural Vigor (Unchanged)

Master: Primal Protection: You and your pet gain Aegis (2s) and Protection (2s) when you dodge roll.

Grandmaster: Tranquility: Upon killing a foe, gain 20 endurance.

Nature Magic:

Adept: Medicinal Herbs: When your pet reaches 20% health, cure all conditions and apply regeneration (5s).

Master: Rejuvenating Bond: Gain regeneration (5s) when your health drops below the threshold (75%). All boons and trait bonuses you obtain are shared with your pet (Combination/Rework of Adept and Master Nature Magic traits).

Grandmaster: Bountiful Hunter (Unchanged)

Beastmastery:

Adept: Loud Whistle: Reduce the recharge on pet swapping by 20%.

Master: Honed Fangs: You and your pet gain power equal to 10% of healing power. Your pet heals itself (.1) when it attacks (Rework/Combine Nature’s Wrath and Carnivorous Appetite)

Grandmster: Beast’s Promise: If your pet dies and you cannot swap pets, your other pet is swapped to and revived at 50% health.

TRAIT CHANGES:

^= New skill designed to replace skill holes.

Marksmanship:

-^True Strike (Marksmanship X): Your Opening Strikes ignore Aegis.
-Removal of Beastmaster’s Bond and Signet Mastery.
-^Calm of Battle (Marksmanship IV): Your attacks ignore Protection.
-^Pin Down (Marksmanship IX): Your Open Strikes apply 2s of Immobilize.
-^Marksmanship XI (Mighty Signets, credit to Nike): Activating a Signet grants 3 Stacks of Might and Signet recharge rates are reduced by 20%).
-^Tight-Quarter Bow-master (Marksmanship XII): Range increment penalties on bows are ignored. You gain 10% increased damage for fighting foes within 150 range.

Skirmishing:

-Agility Training (Skirmishing VI): You and your pet move 25% faster. Toned down from 30% for pets only, stacks with initial bonus pet move speed to 50%.
-Trap Potency moved to Skirmishing VII.
-^Fleet of Foot (Skirmishing XI): Cripple’s duration on you is reduced by 30%.

Wilderness Survival:

-^Antivenin (Wilderness Survival XI): Cure two conditions once every 10 seconds.

Nature Magic:

-^Longevity (Nature Magic IV): While under the effect of a Spirit spell, your pet takes 50% less damage.
-^Animal Aspects (Nature Magic VII): You also radiate the effects of Spirits.
-Nature’s Vengeance applies spirit pet effects when the pet dies.

Beastmastery:

-Speed Training recharge rate reduction increased to 20%.
-Master’s Bond: Your pet’s attributes are increased further (Apply current maximum at all times).

Chrispy.5641:

4) Sustained works just fine for me in PvE, and WvW (and even though I don’t play PvP, the most popular Ranger builds are currently a sustain build). Traps (our AE) also works just fine for me. Using the Longbow for its intended purpose (max. Range) works fine for me as well. Do you have any examples for why Sustained doesn’t work? If you want to bring the whole “Dps is all that matters” into the argument, go on ahead, but DPS is not all that matters. I can run through dungeons just fine in sustain and defensive builds, I run with other people who think the same, and I don’t need the 1% Top, World Record Dungeon Runners to come up to me and tell me otherwise.

Strangely, this is how I feel as well mostly. And it jives with my experience . . . but likewise we both agree there are tweaks/changes needed. Not just “moar DPS/Burst” . . . it’s why I’ve focused a lot on the pet (the one definitive point we really and sorely need some improvements) and on making us more useful to the group without necessarily going “Dee-pee-ess” and still winding up less useful than a warrior in that place.

6) Yes, Atherakhia, They all do, and it is the way I play in WvW. I use traps, Torch and Warhorn(when attacking), and Longbow(when defending) to put pressure on Enemies. I would explain how I do it (for the fifth time in this thread), but you don’t seem to want to listen. And the CDI exists because the Ranger is less than Optimal, not because we need to dramatize every aspect of the class, and completely overhaul everything about it.

So I’m not the only one who uses Longbow for pressure? Granted I swapped Torch for Warhorn because “Call of the Wild” was more useful for a blast finisher than some burning (to me), and getting into melee with a zerg seems like asking for a free trip to the local Waypoint.

I don’t use traps so much though, not traited for them. I’m traited for basic/general PvE. Strangely, this works for me.

Barrage may be good in some situations but overall it is not very good skill and doesn’t fit well in longbow. With out need to stay in one place and long casting time it would be different story but as it is now not very good and here have been some good suggestions to replace it. Personally i think long range shot is not very good either and it would be nice replace it with skill that cause more dmg to target with low hp which would add more pressure on target. Or replaced some skill like splinter shot that have larger splash radius around to target further away. Rapid shot need its casting time reduced or replaced with something new. What i suggested was replace it with old style hunters shot that hits harder and add thous vulnerability stacks, sure this is not that good vs thief’s and mesmers, but would open up space to some cc skills.

PET PROBLEMS & PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

(This is a list of pet problems (and solutions) I’m facing in different areas of the game. Many of these have already been discussed in this thread and I’ve borrowed the ones I like into this list. This is also me being lazy and not reading through all the posts.)

I – Pets’ inability to hit moving targets: (PvP/WvW)

• Pet movement speed should be increased by 15-20%.
• Default range of pet melee attacks should be increased to 250 from 130 units.

II – Pets dying instantly from one-shot mechanics: (PvE/WvW)

• Pets should gain invulnerability for 0,75s when you dodge roll.

III – Pets dying too fast when facing excessive AoEs/zerg: (WvW)

• Pets should have 70% damage reduction against AoE/cleave (unaffected by protection).
• Smart system that tracks incoming damage and applies reduction when pet takes damage from too many sources/too rapidly.
• I believe having a constant 70% AoE damage reduction would make the pet too strong in small scale battles.

IV – Pets do more harm than good in some cases: (PvE/Jumping puzzles)

• Allow pets to be “perma stowed”.

V – Insufficient pet controls: (PvX)

• F1: Attack My Target & Return to Me – toggle skill.
• F2: Pet unique skill – finally being fixed.
• F3: Pet family skill – this can be selected from the 3 remaining pet skills and also be left for AI to handle.
• F4: Pet Swap – no changes
• F5/Unspecified: Pet Stance – Aggressive/Guard/Avoid Combat. Aggressive – pet engages anyone who attacks ranger or ranger is attacking. Guard – pet engages the target ranger is attacking.
• F6/Unspecified: Pet Stow – perma stow

VI – Too many pet traits outside of Beastmastery: (PvX)

• Each trait line (excluding Beatmastery) should have only one strictly pet related “training” trait. For example:
  • Marksmanship – Malicious Training: Increases damage and duration of conditions applied by your pets. (+350 condition damage / +33% condition duration)
  • Skirmishing – Pet Prowess - no changes
  • Wilderness Survival – Stability Training: Pets grant stability to nearby allies on pet swap. (2s / 360 radius)
  • Nature Magic – Concentration Training: Pet healing attributes are increased. Boons applied by your pets last longer. (+350 healing power / 33% boon duration)

• Other pet traits in these trait lines should be replaced, moved to beastmastery, combined with other traits or reworked to apply their effects to ranger as well.

VII – Some beatmastery traits are limited to certain pet types: (PvX)

• Beastmastery master level traits should be extended to work on all pet types. Rebalancing and ICDs should be used where necessary.

VIII – Some traits and skills harm the pet: (PvX)

• These traits/skills should be either removed or reworked. For example:
  • Beastmaster’s Bond - applies protection (5s) to the pet.
  • Shared Anguish - Stability Training replaces this trait (see above).
  • Empathic Bond - reworked to remove conditions on pet swap instead of transferring them to pet.
  • Protect Me - pet gains protection and regeneration for 6s.
  • Signet of Renewal - see my signet suggestions here

How would I Fix Longbow? (PvE/WvW)
(I don’t play PvP, and I’m not interested)
- First, lets see what Allie put in her post about is a week ago :::

Longbow: Reward max range and synergize with pet.

1. Vulnerability instead of damage increase with range (s1), cripple (s2), immobilize (s3), knockdown (s5)
2. Pet might (s3), swiftness (s2), regen (s5)

I’ve been getting an English Longbow kind of feel from this weapon ever since I started using it. And compared to how well the French did against the English in the Battle of Agincourt (read, the French gots stomped!), I am convinced that’s what the longbow in Guild Wars 2 is supposed to be, a weapon that rewards playing at max range, and punishes enemies that think they can get in close range to attack you.

1) – I think that all weapons should synergize wih the pet (and have a trait to synergize with us instead if pet is dead or stowed), so, I won’t worry about that.

2) – Skill changes I would propose :::

• 1. Long Range Shot – Unchanged from what it is (as far as physical damage goes). While it deals damage at maximum range, it should punish enemies in a different way that get too close. It should be punishing enemies that try to move closer to you, so I think that if an enemy is less than 1,000 range to you, it should apply a stack of ::: Cripple Torment or Vulnerability

• 2. Rapid Fire – Unchanged from what it is (as far as physical damage goes). The Vulnerability should also remain unchanged. There is 2 changes I would like to make for it though.
  1. At Maximum Range (more than 1000) Rapid Fire should apply 2 stacks of Vulnerability instead, so it still deals more damage at more distant ranges.
  2. At Minimum Range (less than 1000) Rapid Fire should shoot faster. This is similar to real world archers finding their target faster at closer and closer ranges. It could fire 10% faster every 100 range the enemy is closer yo you than 1000 range, with a cap at 50% faster than how it fires now.

• 3. Hunter’s Shot – (I have a problem with the Stealth, because there is quite a few skills that can cancel it if they are already firing off. Stealth should be removed, and given to us in another way (I vote shortbow or Utilities), because as cool as Stealth is, its still useless because of the nature of too many of our skills (not just barrage).)
  1. At Maximum Range (more than 1000), This skill should cripple the enemy, and give you and your pet Swiftness. This gives you a choice to either move closer or farther away from the enemy to set up your other longbow skills.
  2. At minimum Range (less than 1000), This Skill Rips a Boon off the Enemy, and gives it both you and your pet (and synergy with Fortifying bond), and still gives your pet swiftness.
  3. At any Range, This Skill should apply Opening Strike, without the need to take any traits.

• 4. Point Black Shot – This Skill works in the opposite way that Long Range Shot does. I think the Damage should be increased to reflect that, and also really punish enemies that are at an actual Point Blank Range.
  1. At 600+ Range – 400 Knockback, and the same damage LB#1 does at close range.
  2. At 300-600 Range – 500 Knockback, and the same damage as LB#1 does at medium range.
  3. Less than 300 Range – Enemy gets Launched instead. Deals as much damage as LB#1 does at max range.
  4. Eagle eye trait should increase the ranges that these effects work at.

• 5. Barrage – I have no problems with how the skill works by default. You are sacrificing 2.75 seconds for 12 seconds of sustained damage and cripple. That is more than a fair trade. The only problem I really have with this skill is that Piercing arrows doesn’t work with it. If you increase the targets it can hit, then you die faster from retaliation. If you decrease the targets, and make it a killshot style skill, then you defeat the purpose of the longbow, which is supposed to be a max range weapon. So what do you do?
  1. Eagle Eye – This Trait now Doubles the Maximum Targets that Barrage can affect.
  2. Nature’s Protection – This Trait now prevents retaliation when using AoE skills (and also makes the trait more useful than 5 secs of protection,…every 30 seconds). As an Alternate, it gives Retaliation damage you recieve to your pet instead.

• On stealth I think Stealth should be moved to the Shortbow because that is a weapon where you have to move to the side or behind an enemy in order to set up attacks (such as concussion shot). I also think that we could benefit even more if we had a utility skill that applied stealth instead, like a Dust Trap, or a Camouflage survival skill for example.

Chrispy.5641:

• On stealth I think Stealth should be moved to the Shortbow because that is a weapon where you have to move to the side or behind an enemy in order to set up attacks (such as concussion shot). I also think that we could benefit even more if we had a utility skill that applied stealth instead, like a Dust Trap, or a Camouflage survival skill for example.

Still digesting the rest of the post but this, hmm. This works for me of all the “fixes” I’ve seen for the Longbow. Though I can see why the Stealth moved there – to take advantage of the change to Remorseless allowing “Opening Strike” to function when coming out of Stealth. I suppose it could be changed so Opening Strike refreshes when flanking an enemy? (Definitely would make enemies pay attention to the Ranger rather than ignoring them, wouldn’t it?)

Why not move the Stealth to “Quick Shot” (skill 3), retain Swiftness if it hits. Something like this.

“Quick Shot”: Shortbow. Range 900. Damage 118. Evade 0.75s, Stealth 3s, Swiftness 3s if it hits. Phys Projectile Finisher. May be fired at a target you are not facing.

Why does it feel like we’ve had this conversation before?
Is there any topic on the Ranger that hasn’t been done to death already?

Allie has pretty much stopped moderating it, big surprise there, and I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. Isn’t it about time we put this CDI to rest?

Yoh.8469:

Why does it feel like we’ve had this conversation before?
Is there any topic on the Ranger that hasn’t been done to death already?

Allie has pretty much stopped moderating it, big surprise there, and I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. Isn’t it about time we put this CDI to rest?

Agreed.

A second summary from her about the rest of the discussions should be sufficient for now.

Game mode: WvW

Proposal Review:
because in this current state, ranger in WvW supposed to do damage to the squishy enemy in the “periphery” such as elementalist & necros (and not thief, its a long discussion so i don’t tell you why in this post). we need to change the 2nd skill of Longbow into something more faster casting time

Goal of Proposal:
to make the 2nd skill of longbow more useful against “periphery” side of zerg.

Functionality of proposal:
to actually improve ranger to do their single targeted philosophy. is to improve how ranger deals damage to the target (in WvW strategy, squishy target or “periphery”)
the problem in this current state, ranger need to apply vulnerability to deals more damage and to actually kill someone. so they need to use 2nd longbow skill to periphery. but the problem is in GW2 mechanics people can dodge. and this Rapid-fire can be ignored by dodging it so the vulnerability won’t stack. so again… the “sustained damage” skill model won’t work in WvW if there is dodge mechanic. so when the periphery know a ranger hitting them, they will just dodge it (we also know that rapid fire is a slow skill).
the solution to this is to make the Rapid-fire more faster or change it into a burst skill.
i still think the rapid fire still work if the cast time is faster, making it target hard to dodge the rapid fire (2nd Longbow skill). but lowering the damage of rapid fire, so in overall (Rapid-fire + autoattack) still dealing same dps

Risk:
Ranger can no longer track Thief by using 2nd skill before stealth.

Addition:
i think the primary target of ranger in WvW is not Thief. but “periphery”, such as elemental and necros who deal AoE damage and AoE control effect. which is more useful target than a Thief. so this is not a risk at all….
i am really sure that Anet design Ranger as Anti-Periphery since it is single target philosophy.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But you didn’t touch the assertion I made – in a straight up fight between one thief with shortbow alone and one ranger with shortbow alone, no weapon swaps and no help? A skilled ranger is probably going to come out on top. Give them other weapons, probably the thief due to their pretty high burst potential. But shortbow? I don’t see it.

I would still think that the thief would win but ok. I’m not talking about PvP anyways, I’m talking about structured PvE.

I find that a problem, but primarily a problem which tells me things need to get toned down rather than us toned up. Though if it winds up easier, tone us up some but primarily I’d much rather see us be useful more than damaging. Our ability to survive a lot of things runs into the problem of us not doing enough damage often enough to finish a fight.

But in a group scenario, it’s more . . . to me . . . about making groups find us useful rather than “not a burden”.

Well, I have no problem with the ranger filling any other niche than just raw damage. But I think the ranger was designed to deal damage, not like the warrior, head-on style, but more ranged, kiting style. (The problem is that this leads to an overall damageloss. You can’t just give the ranger the ability to kite/be sustained and to deal max. damage.) However, I want to be uselful in dungeons, just not playing ranger because it’s fun but because it’s good. If the ranger would be a second guardian, providing defensive buffs, I would be completely fine with that. But still, I think the ranger should be capable of doing competitive damage.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Every weapon of other classes have flaws too, so let’s not pull that card.

Oh I think we should pull out this card. If you want to maximize your damage you just have to care about 1 skill: sword #1. I don’t think you can call this balanced. Furthermore, all other weapons, even the power ones, aren’t capable of dealing competitive damage. So yeah, every class has weapons who aren’t able of dealing the maximum damage, but the ranger has the most ones.

Actually the only thing you need is persistence with a good group. A subpar group could still do it, if they’re willing to keep trying. What people want is to do it with no snags and finish in record times.

(What I want is to finish them all once and never go back unless I find someone doing a path I had fun in.)

The ranger needs tuning, but I do really want to stop trying to measure the class against all the others and go “the damage isn’t as good as X” or “they don’t do Y as well as Z”. I’d much rather we have our own identity and usefulness outside of . . . well “moar DPS!”.

If we’re going to be “the class with the pet” then . . . let’s be that, and be exceptional over that rather than “warrior/thief DPS/burst with a pet on the side”.

Turning all other classes down will take a lot more time since pretty much all other classes can deal more damage. I don’t want to play a warrior but I want to play a class who deals as much damage as the warrior.

Chrispy.5641:

4) Sustained works just fine for me in PvE, and WvW (and even though I don’t play PvP, the most popular Ranger builds are currently a sustain build). Traps (our AE) also works just fine for me. Using the Longbow for its intended purpose (max. Range) works fine for me as well. Do you have any examples for why Sustained doesn’t work? If you want to bring the whole “Dps is all that matters” into the argument, go on ahead, but DPS is not all that matters. I can run through dungeons just fine in sustain and defensive builds, I run with other people who think the same, and I don’t need the 1% Top, World Record Dungeon Runners to come up to me and tell me otherwise.

It works. But that is no excuse for the lack of damage. Hell, everything “works” in PvE.
And congratz if you have no problem finding a group, but I want to open the LFG-Tool and join the next “zerker only” group, without the “uh not a ranger again” attitude.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

I would still think that the thief would win but ok. I’m not talking about PvP anyways, I’m talking about structured PvE.

Where there’s no “losing” or “winning” against other players, regardless.

However, I want to be uselful in dungeons, just not playing ranger because it’s fun but because it’s good. If the ranger would be a second guardian, providing defensive buffs, I would be completely fine with that. But still, I think the ranger should be capable of doing competitive damage.

I don’t want to be a “second guardian” or a “secondary tank”. I’ve been secondary tank with rangers before – it’s not as much fun. (No, not this game but a game where “tank” was an actual niche.)

I want to be a ranger. And I want rangers to be desired or at least a valuable asset on their own, not because they’re almost as good at something as another class.

Yes, I know I’m repeating myself because this keeps being brought up in this conversation. Make the ranger better at what it does, or make what it does well work better.

Oh I think we should pull out this card. If you want to maximize your damage you just have to care about 1 skill: sword #1. I don’t think you can call this balanced.

Sure I can – maximizing damage isn’t something rangers have really done well at with one exception in my time playing rangers across a lot of games: EverQuest’s “Trueshot Discipline”. Wherein a ranger can basically outdamage anything for a few seconds of arrow-borne death. Then they don’t get it again for a couple hours.

I’d much rather have the survivability I mentioned earlier in thief vs ranger – I’d rather be the one left standing ressing people as my pet can distract things. Why? It’s just good play rather than going “yo I got dis” and getting flattened quicker than the warrior. (Reminder – we’re not as good at taking damage as the warrior is.)

Furthermore, all other weapons, even the power ones, aren’t capable of dealing competitive damage. So yeah, every class has weapons who aren’t able of dealing the maximum damage, but the ranger has the most ones.

Why should I be competing in damage when I still get XP/loot/Event credit so long as I push over a threshold? I don’t need to outpower the warrior or thief, or outperform the guardian, elementalist, or engineer. I only need to do what I do well enough to not die. Bonus points if I can spend time picking up people off the ground so they can go back to being glass cannons, and still not die.

Turning all other classes down will take a lot more time since pretty much all other classes can deal more damage. I don’t want to play a warrior but I want to play a class who deals as much damage as the warrior.

I’d rather ANet put their chips all in and work on making a class which can be actually useful in a support role and still be good enough at dishing the damage to be useful. Rangers are almost there in that score.

What I mean is: This game needs to stop being about DPS output all the time. Especially when it’s the players who care the most about it when the system doesn’t care 99% of the time.

Yoh.8469:

Why does it feel like we’ve had this conversation before?
Is there any topic on the Ranger that hasn’t been done to death already?

Allie has pretty much stopped moderating it, big surprise there, and I think we’ve pretty much covered everything. Isn’t it about time we put this CDI to rest?

The CDI has turned into the Ranger subforum, just a pointless echo chamber where we all repeat the same ideas 100×.

Unless we get a dev reply before Tuesday, there’s no point to even keeping the thread open anymore.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I want to be a ranger. And I want rangers to be desired or at least a valuable asset on their own, not because they’re almost as good at something as another class.

Yes, I know I’m repeating myself because this keeps being brought up in this conversation. Make the ranger better at what it does, or make what it does well work better.

So what does the ranger offer? 2 Neglectible buffs for your team? A pet who can tank a boss? Incredilbe sustain/kite ability? Hell all that doesn’t matter in dungeons. I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense. Why shouldn’t be there a second class who can stack protection? Why shouldn’t be there another class sharing mass conditionremove and other defensive boons? Noone said “Oh lets just copy the guard/war/thief one-to-one, so the ranger gets useful again”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Why should I be competing in damage when I still get XP/loot/Event credit so long as I push over a threshold? I don’t need to outpower the warrior or thief, or outperform the guardian, elementalist, or engineer. I only need to do what I do well enough to not die. Bonus points if I can spend time picking up people off the ground so they can go back to being glass cannons, and still not die.

Maybe you are ok with the current state of the ranger but I’m not. I want to be as effective as other classes are. To put it simple: What would you lose if you would deal more damage? Wouldn’t you be able to revive other people? Wouldn’t your pet be able of tanking enemies? What is wrong about the desire to be at least as good as other classes?

HHR LostProphet.4801:

So what does the ranger offer? 2 Neglectible buffs for your team? A pet who can tank a boss? Incredilbe sustain/kite ability? Hell all that doesn’t matter in dungeons.

This game is not all about dungeons. Heck, PvE is not even all about dungeons.

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

Maybe you are ok with the current state of the ranger but I don’t. I want to be as effective as other classes are.

I have never said I’m okay with the current state of the ranger. It needs help and tweaks, but it doesn’t need to be reinvented to be some god of ranged damage.

To put it simple: What would you lose if you would deal more damage? Wouldn’t you be able to revive other people? Wouldn’t your pet be ableo of tanking enemies? What is wrong about the desire to be at least as good as other classes?

It’s not the desire as much as the direction. What would I lose if I deal more damage? What is wrong with wanting to be able to stand up with a warrior and deal the same kind of damage? Nothing, and everything.

Ranger needs to be a ranger. If we’re supposed to be stable and sustainable damage as opposed to dropping spikes like raindrops, then let’s be that and be better at it. Start by looking at our weapons and fixing where the damage isn’t getting there (Rapid Fire, most notably), fix the pet so it’s more useful than it is now, and give us some utility where we can have some use other than “pew pew, Imma DPS ya”.

This game doesn’t have to be just about your DPS figure or Boon Dispensing capability to mean you’re of use to a group.

Nektera.9425:

is Anet really reading all the comment post here? or we’ve just got trolled by other people and troll other people here?. because i think this is just a thread to make people calmer. so they can wait for Anet have the funds to improve the game.

no offense. i think this is a good path for Anet to choose. people need to be calm here in the forum, so Anet will have time to get funds to pay people to improve the game.

don’t get me wrong, i support Anet to improve the game. people just need to understand that they need time. and will not improve the game simply because of this thread.

It’s also not, in any way, going to happen “soon”. So even if they get a fix or several fixes from this topic, we’re not guaranteed to be seeing them in the next month.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

This game is not all about dungeons. Heck, PvE is not even all about dungeons.

Dungeons are a part of PvE and not a minor one. And if you would open your LFG-Tool just one time you would quickly realize that the ranger is no competitor for the current meta-classes.

It’s not the desire as much as the direction. What would I lose if I deal more damage? What is wrong with wanting to be able to stand up with a warrior and deal the same kind of damage? Nothing, and everything.

Ranger needs to be a ranger. If we’re supposed to be stable and sustainable damage as opposed to dropping spikes like raindrops, then let’s be that and be better at it. Start by looking at our weapons and fixing where the damage isn’t getting there (Rapid Fire, most notably), fix the pet so it’s more useful than it is now, and give us some utility where we can have some use other than “pew pew, Imma DPS ya”.

This game doesn’t have to be just about your DPS figure or Boon Dispensing capability to mean you’re of use to a group.

But what defines the ranger? Is it the pet? The AI is broken and it will stay broken. I don’t want want to rely on something broken. The pet can tank for me and it can offer additional stuff, but I don’t want to be limited by the pet. Removing the mandatory damagecomponent from the pet will be a first huge step in the right direction.
Basically this: Awesome Suggestion
If they have done something in this direction, we could look at the weapons again if they would still be bad or not.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

I wont stop stating that the ranger has to be competitive in PvE. I wont say “Oh, ele FGS so OP, ranger needs that too” but other classes can deal way more damage, or to keep it more general, other classes are way more effective in what they do than we are able to do and that has to be changed.

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

I wont stop stating that the ranger has to be competitive in PvE. I wont say “Oh, ele FGS so OP, ranger needs that too” but other classes can deal way more damage, or to keep it more general, other classes are way more effective in what they do than we are able to do and that has to be changed.

Looks like we are fine at dealing damage in PvE. Youtube Proves it!!!

Though, if you don’t want to bend over backwards when it comes to dealing a large amount of damage like that video,…the first step would be to nerf what makes us that strong (signets). The second step would be to nerf what is making the pet that strong (signets and Companion’s Might). The third step would be to finally increase the damage that weapons do, but, you’re foolish if you think that anything’s going to get more than a 10% damage increase from those nerfs.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

xallever.1874:

But the overall DPS is improved by bringing a Ranger instead of a 2nd warrior. The Ranger doesn’t lack competitive damage when they carry a sword/horn.

Well the warrior will deal more damage than the ranger simply because the warrior can rotate between axe/mace and gs while the ranger has to sit on sword AA. The reason why a ranger is still better is because the 2 warriors would reach the might and vulnerability cap. The ranger offers a unique buff and spotter. This however oughtn’t hide the fact that the ranger has just one weapon with competitve damage which gets hindered by a clunky playstyle.

Spotter is 150 precision (iirc) and Frost Spirit is a 7% DPS buff when traited (assuming it stays alive). Yes these skills are powerful and desirable in PvE but they don’t put the ranger above the warrior. The warrior has Empower Allies (150 power) and two DPS banners (Discipline and Strength which are the best buffs in the game imo). Rangers ae also pretty bad at stacking might and are locked into pet, offhand training and the warhorn to do perma Fury. Banners are also easier to use (immune to damage and can be moved without a trait).

Ranger utilities are pretty bad at supporting your party, so are the pets. Rangers have very few good option to support party DPS. Only Frost Spirit is desired by DPS groups and Stone Spirit is RNG Protection. Ranger support options are either bad or bland. Does anyone enjoy placing Frost Spirit? It might be useful but it’s flat out boring (place and forget, you don’t use the active because proper placement means it’s out of range, the benefit to your allies is flat DPS which is also boring). You bring it because it’s your best support utility, not because there’s anything fun about playing with it.

Then you have traps which are almost pointless in PvE, signets which need to be traited to benefit you and don’t benefit your party, and wilerness survival skills and shouts which are also very selfish. Rangers are very limited when it comes to being team players, that’s something I’d love to see changed.

One way to change that easily would be to change longbow’s Barrage to function like the Frost Bow’s “4” skill. That would make the weapon strong against burrows and world bosses (two parts of the game rangers are weak at).

Another way would be to give pets better F2 skills and more utility and build diversity.

Chrispy.5641:

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

I wont stop stating that the ranger has to be competitive in PvE. I wont say “Oh, ele FGS so OP, ranger needs that too” but other classes can deal way more damage, or to keep it more general, other classes are way more effective in what they do than we are able to do and that has to be changed.

Looks like we are fine at dealing damage in PvE. Youtube Proves it!!!

Though, if you don’t want to bend over backwards when it comes to dealing a large amount of damage like that video,…the first step would be to nerf what makes us that strong (signets). The second step would be to nerf what is making the pet that strong (signets and Companion’s Might). The third step would be to finally increase the damage that weapons do, but, you’re foolish if you think that anything’s going to get more than a 10% damage increase from those nerfs.

Yeaah, you have an uptime of 6 seconds and a cooldown of 40 seconds minimum.
Also it’s just spamming sword autoattack again. Ah yeah, and Maul.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Chrispy.5641:

I want to be useful, not just reviving downed people. I want to be the “I got this” guy.
And please stop this “I don’t want to be a second …” nonsense.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’ll stop it when people stop saying we need to be as good as X class at Y. No, what we need is for our class to work better at what it does or what it theoretically does.

I wont stop stating that the ranger has to be competitive in PvE. I wont say “Oh, ele FGS so OP, ranger needs that too” but other classes can deal way more damage, or to keep it more general, other classes are way more effective in what they do than we are able to do and that has to be changed.

Looks like we are fine at dealing damage in PvE. Youtube Proves it!!!

Though, if you don’t want to bend over backwards when it comes to dealing a large amount of damage like that video,…the first step would be to nerf what makes us that strong (signets). The second step would be to nerf what is making the pet that strong (signets and Companion’s Might). The third step would be to finally increase the damage that weapons do, but, you’re foolish if you think that anything’s going to get more than a 10% damage increase from those nerfs.

Yeaah, you have an uptime of 6 seconds and a cooldown of 40 seconds minimum.
Also it’s just spamming sword autoattack again. Ah yeah, and Maul.

I never said it wasn’t a boring way to play. The fact that we can do that at all though, is the reason why the damage split exists between us and our pets, why our weapons deal so little damage compared to other professions, and why everyone thinks we can’t play as well as other professions. The video proves we can. Now what would you suggest we change about it so we don’t have to use 1 trick ponies just to compete with other professions?

And the suggest buff cannot come without the suggested nerfs as well.