Guild Wars 2

Vox Hollow.2736:

That is the one thing I love about Asia’s mmo combat is that it’s all stupidly over the top. Everyone moves crazy fast or has absurd attack animations and equipment. It makes it all a lot more fantastical and enjoyable. It’s one of the things GW2 lacks (unless you play thief) and it becomes dreadfully obvious when you use the same weapon sets for 1000+ hours.

Oh man, you want over the top?
I see Aridia’s BLESS Ranger, and raise you a Black Desert Ranger
http://youtu.be/TmhFBTHrt8E?t=2m11s

Darned Western Market and it’s love for crappy tab targeting. I can’t tell you how much I wanted Longbow to play more like this when I first heard about GW2.

that game looks good, i learned about it some days ago and definitely will keep it on watch. That archer play kind of like Tera, i like the archer in tera and enjoy it. Like you said i wish longbow play more like this but even tho ranger is my main i just dont enjoy it as much as in tera for example, it needs more.

drazhen.9307:

My own patch-note – part1: power weapon skills

From a spvp perspective.

GS :

1. Remove evade from 3rd strike, add opening strike to ur pet
2. If the target is dazed/stunned, will do a short knock-down, slight radius buff
3. Add a short-evade
4. Speed-up and add evade to the counter-attack frame
5. Xplo finisher

You see, this is the problem with pvpers trying to come up with balance ideas.
The greastsword is the only perfect weapon for wvw right now. The evade from #1 saved me a lot of time, same as the long blocking from #4.
Not everything is about pvp…

You should re-read what I suggest – by giving up on gs evade on #1, you’re getting evades on both #3 and #4(counter-attack is more of a self-stun when it happens right now). Also, you still get the same duration on block, I think you didnt really read/understand and stopped at what you dislike, see the full picture.

Spamming #1 for random evades is not what I consider a good design, however 2 evades on demand would be very welcome, and I feel it is the direction the game have to go for every mode, less random, spammy and passive stuff, dont you agree?

(I edited my post to mention your opinion about GS#1)

urdriel.8496:

Evasive purity was supposed to heal one condi each dodge, but Anet thought it would be op……

If that’s the case, then we should talk to Anet on Monday about giving Evasive Purity the ability to heal any 2 conditions on dodge, or, remove the cooldown, and give us the ability to heal any 1 condition whenever we dodge, period.

Its not because of all the Vigor and Endurance regen nerfs, though that certainly is related. Its because Evasive purity only cures poison and blind, and its on a 10 second cooldown. Other professions (Elementalist) can cure themselves, and allies, and remove a condition from allies, any condition, on dodge, with the same 10 second cooldown. Sure its a grandmaster trait compared to our master trait so it should be more powerful, but, Evasive purity is not powerful enough to consider it a master trait by comparison (trait to trait or profession to profession). Maybe an Adept trait, and maybe it should be moved.

Castaliea.3156:

I agree with a lot of the things you say Crispy, but the Bows needs to be changed. Maybe they don’t need to be an insta-win weapons but as it is now is just silly.

Away from anything else you said in your post, that second sentence right there is what I would very much like Anet to avoid,…..insta-win Weapons.

I can already do a 16,000 damage Maul or a 12,000 damage counterattack to most enemy players, by using Valkyrie gear and Signets, and might stacking using the method I previously mentioned. Its just even better because precise strike makes my first attack always crit, and since I have a sigil of Air on there, there is a chance that it fires off, dealing an additional 2,000 damage.

Rangers already have a 1-2 shot kill option through their greatsword. Its a very risky skill combination, because it requires you to use up all of your signets, but the reward (1-2 hit kill?) more than makes up for it, and in the confusion of a Zerg in the middle of WvW, I can very easily down two or three players at a time sometimes because they weren’t paying attention…And there are people that want greatsword to get a 20% damage buff across the board? seriously?…I just don’t see how or why. You could argue that its because other professions have a skill combination for just as much reward with less risk (Thieves, I’m looking at you!), but, what about the professions that don’t?

Castaliea.3156:

Hell, a lot of the problem is also from a lack of actual utility from both traits and utility skills AND the pet. The whole thing we call Ranger needs complete re-development because you cannot honestly sit there and tell me tweak this, tweak that (akin to “balancing”) when every single thing is so ridiculously out of sync or focus.

And I agree with that. The problem that I think alot of people have (Including Anet, and I do not appologize for that), is that no one looks at the bigger picture.

Take the massive nerf we got to Endurance regen for example. That nerf alone made that trait (Natural Vigor) 50% less effective. Well, what about our other traits that involves dodging? Why is the cooldown on Evasive Purity still 10 seconds? Did that becomes 50% less effective too because our ability to dodge got nerfed? Why does Primal Reflexes still only give 5 seconds of vigor if its one of our riskiest traits, because it requires us to take damage in order to get a boon? Where does Vigorous Training and Vigorous Renewal play into this? Why then, if Natural Vigor was ‘Ridiculously OP’ for a trait (and that’s actually quoted), why wasn’t it nerfed at launch? Why did it take over a year? Why do Warriors have a Signet (Signet of Stamina) still give a 50% Endurance regeneration rate, if 50% is apparently too high for Rangers?

I could ask 10 more questions on this subject, before I even move on to how Spirits, Traps, and Pets affect the big picture.

Edit : picture so you know I’m not bull[censored] you. Greatsword is more than powerful as it is with the right skill combo. Does not need a buff. Does not need a nerf either though.

My own patch-note – part2: utilities

Traps:
Venom trap: poison zone, scales much much better with power.
Frost trap: add 1 sec daze if the target is burning, add a 1hit moderate dmg, reduce cast time to 1/4
Spike trap: add Xtorment if the target is poisonned.
Holy Flame Trap: Cures 1 condi / pulse, tweak cd

Signets: I read it a few times, and I feel it’s the way to go: reverse it, actives apply to yourself by default, to the pet once traited (and becomes a master trait, more on that later)
Signet of the hunt: add a X sec camouflage to the active, tweak cd
Signet of renewal: improve range of the active
Signet of the wild: instant cast time

Sharpening stone: also improves dmg by the next 5 attack by x%
Lithtning Reflexes: cures immo, crip, chilled
Quickening Zephyr: cures poison, burn, bleed

Shouts:
Protects me: Also heals the pet for X hps – Self. invuln. to blind/weakness/vuln for X sec (aoe once traited, master)
Sick-em: Also, pet becomes invulnerable to crip/immo/chilled – Self. invuln. to crip/immo/chilled for X seconds (aoe once traited, same trait)
Guard: next pet attack will stun for 0.5sec (aoe very short protection once traited)
Hide, Search and Rescue: add smoke field, increase cast time to 1.75 sec (aoe, no max target, 6sec camouflage that doesnt proc reveaved once traited)

Spirits: meh, hate them.

Healing:
Heal as one: is now a shout (aoe moderate heal once traited)
Troll Unguent: Nature’s bounty adds X extra ticks. Double tap: transfer the unguent to nearby allies for the remaining duration (obv. not a 850hp/s unguent, tweak numbers)

So, I have an idea for cutting the 26 Traits that affect our pets in half to 13, so that way 1) the number of Ranger traits that affects their F1-4 class mechanic is in line with other professions, and so that way 2) Rangers can finally get more build options that aren’t forced to use pets. I need some help with what the idea should include. What I have so far is this::::

IDEA 1 (Condensing pet traits, and removing unecessary ones)
Beastmastery
- Rending Attacks, Stability Training, and Intimidation Training get condensed into one Trait. The reason they should be condensed is that no pet will ever benefit from any two of those traits anyways, and having to decide which one to bring kills build diversity more than helps it, because it forces you to chose one pet family to take for your two pets. (I understand that individually, some of these traits underperform as it is, but condensing them into 1 will open up Beastmastery to 2 new traits)

• Specialization Training – Your Pet gains a specialization based on their family.
  - Drake, Feline, Devourer, and Shark pets Bleed on Critical Hits
  - Ursine, Porcine, and Armor Fish pets gain Stability when disabled.
  - Activated F2 abilities for Canines, and Spiders cause Cripple.
  - Birds, Jellyfish, and Moas need an effect for them as well, since Vigorous Training no longer activates only when switching those specific pets.

- Compassion Training, Concentration Training, Expertise Training, Malicious Training, and Pet’s Prowess, need to be condensed into 2 traits, 1 for damage, 1 for support. The reason for this is, is with very few exceptions (Fern Hounds and Stalkers, for example), no pet benefits from any two of these traits by any significant margin, especially the ones related to healing and condition damage. This will also open us up for 2 new traits that actually do something for the Ranger, instead of our pets.

- Agility Training needs to be reworked or removed. If it is removed, then pets should move 30% faster by default, since they have enough of a hard time hitting moving targets.

- So far, that is 6 traits removed (2 in beastmastery, 1 in Skirmishing, and the other 3 depends on how the old ones were combined), reducing the number of pet traits we have to 20. Its a good start.

I have an alternate idea to change all pet related traits so that way they affect both the pet and the Ranger in some way as well. Still working on that one.

Beastmaster will always be useless when you have a pet dealing less than 2k per crit even with the right traits to buff it’s damage.

Chrispy.5641:

[…]

Could you please stop to post walls of text, I don’t want to read all that.
I usually skip your posts because of that. Keeping in mind that the Ranger CDI starts soon, you should work on compressing your posts to keep them clear.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Chrispy.5641:

[…]

Could you please stop to post walls of text, I don’t want to read all that.
I usually skip your posts because of that. Keeping in mind that the Ranger CDI starts soon, you should work on compressing your posts to keep them clear.

I don’t post walls of text any longer than anyone else does, so if you don’t want to read them because they are too long, just skip right on by like you are doing.

So, I have this other idea for Ranger…., so…..I’m going to post a wall of text, of course!

because anet rly slowly change things i realy agree for this things first

“Good Changes

Spike Trap (Utility), add smoke combo field.
Frost Trap (Utility), add pulse base damage.
Companion’s Might (Trait), now effects the ranger as well.
Empathic Bond (Trait), moved to Wilderness Survival Master tier.
Rapid Fire (LB), fires 1 arrow rather then channel skill and deals same damage.
Pet, F2 will about-face target."

would be amazing to see and should be not hard to patch

Chrispy.5641:

So, I have an idea for cutting the 26 Traits…

I like it a lot and makes perfect sense, Ill post my ideas on pets later, the most important one would be giving us control on their 2nd most usefull skill.

The big three things that are problematic with ranger, as agreed on by most players here, are:
1) some dubious traits and having to go 30 into a line to make something be usable
2) lack of active condition removal
3) pet unresponsiveness

1) Traits
-As far as traits go, we have a twofold problem here; First we have some pointless traits like Instinctual bond and horrible Opening strike minor traits that ties into Remorseless. Then we have the capital offenders, Signet of the Beastmaster and Trap Mastery. I would put Vigorous spirits in there as a badly designed trait, but as it stands now Spirits are fine, if a bit on the strong side.

My suggestions here would be tweak some of these traits to fill the gaping hole of Ranger-Pet interaction and active condition removal:

Opening strikes – Every 10th attack the ranger inflicts 10 stacks of vulnerability for X seconds

Alpha training – Pet does 10% extra damage to targets with vulnerability

Signet of the Beastmaster – Signet actives affect ranger by default. Signet active durations changed from 6s to 4s for stone and is a stun breaker, from 8s to 6s for Wild. Signet of the Hunt active changed from More damage to 4 seconds of stealth for ranger and pet. When traited signet duration effects increased by 25%

Both trap traits – GM trap condition duration increase given by default to all traps. Master trap AOE increase given by default to all traps. New single Master trap trait that gives 20% CD reduction and the ability to throw. New GM trait Skirmishers gambit – critical hits transfer 2 conditions to target, ICD of 15 seconds.

Carnivorous apetite – trait funcionality changed to: pet critical hits heal the ranger, ranger critical hits heal the pet.

Instinctual bond – convert 1 condition into a boon on pet swap

2) Active condition removal

- Having covered a part of the problem through traits there are a few more places to put condition removal on the utility bar

Heal as One – a major candidate for active condition removal as it is a very generic heal that is never used. Added 3 conditions removed on heal, same as Warrior Mending.

Lightning reflexes – Another offender that is not in line with other withdrawal skills. Added removal of cripple, immob and chilled on cast.

Protect me – No longer kills the pet. Losing a chunk of your dps and utility because of not attacking is a big enough drawback along with its quite big CD.

3) Pet reliability

-This is the tricky part as we do not have access to pet code or algorythms. The easy start would be to just considerably lower F2 cast times and take it from there. 3 seconds of Jungle stalker and devourer is hilarious

My own patch-note – part3: Pets

As said billions of times, pet reactivity need improvements

Suggestions for the lazy :p :

-Reduce cast time on most skills
-Improve running speed by default
-Improve range on melee skills
-Most aoe skills use ground targeting mechanic

Also, the mechanic itself need something more and it seems very interesting to me to let us control a 2nd skill.
And It doesnt look very hard to add this feature since every pet already have a 2nd mid-high CD skill:

Moas: Harmonic cry – heal
Spiders: poison field
Felines: Maul – bleed
Bears: Defy pain – no damage
Boars: Brutal charge – KD
Devorers: Tail lash – KB
Birds: Quickening Screesh – Speed buff
Canines: Brutal Charge: KD
Drakes: Tail Swipe – aoe and blast finisher

When you look at them, I can’t understand how they are not already controllable, it would add so much depths to the class.
But that would only work if there’s a way to improve their reactiveness.

Forzani.2584:

That should be on the CDI post.

Choose 1

A. Have use of a pet but lose 30% damage for your Ranger
B. Stow pet and get full damage for your Ranger

Answer should also clarify what game play IE PvE, Dungeons, PvP, WvW

Choice man, it’s all about choice. Why not give Rangers the choice to use a pet or not?

Although this is logical I don’t think that it would be good for rangers. I think having a pet is what’s special about them and a pet or not shouldn’t reduce damage.

[Edit]

I came up with an idea today that I thought was awesome, wanted to bring it up.

I thought it would be cool if rangers could shapeshift into an animal and take advantage of it’s traits and skills.

Of course this would take an entire rework altogether and may be a little too confusing. Even so, I still thought it could be a cool idea.

Now that that figment of my imagination is off my chest, now I can talk about longbow abilities. I’ve been thinking lately that all the other classes have some form of aoe, whether it’s damage or utility, and I thought it would be interesting if rapid fire or an entirely new ability altogether went through it’s target and penetrated any enemies behind or in front of that target.

The reason I bring this up is because in my recent wvw match, with the amount of enemies there are and world battles getting as crazy as they can get, it can be very overwhelming trying to shoot anyone with a bow when you cannot shoot anyone without targeting them. Tab is useful only when there aren’t 5-10 dead enemies in wvw on the ground.

Also, an Ele’s meteor shower can deal 2000+ damage to ALL enemies hit inside it’s AOE as long as they remain inside of it. A ranger’s barrage for the long bow is a joke. ALL IT DOES IS CRIPPLE!!!! I think rangers should have an ability like the ele’s conjured frost bow, where they can rain down hell and deal the same damage to anyone inside that aoe field. Ranger NEEDS a LOT more AOE and not be single target!

Lastly before I go, was thinking about the Elementalist’s attunements and thought it would be great if rangers had similar attunements that would activate poison f1, fire f2, frost f3, regular f4 arrows. Each attunement would have different abilities.

Chrispy.5641:

Greatsword is more than powerful as it is with the right skill combo. Does not need a buff. Does not need a nerf either though.

The problem is having to use all signets to have a burst…
All weapon should be potent on their own… and a big burst every 40-60 seconds is nothing. I agree something shall be done to keep burst in check, but not by keeping the weapon’s overall damage under the floor…

A problem with ranger weapons is that they’re all so dependent on the auto attack and the auto attacks are weak.

Chrispy.5641:

I need some help with what the idea should include. What I have so far is this::::
-snip-
I have an alternate idea to change all pet related traits so that way they affect both the pet and the Ranger in some way as well. Still working on that one.

Mind if I help ya? Throw me a message at your leisure.

Edit: I started this and I have to say I really would just rather re-design the entire current Ranger/Pet design and then delete all the traits and start over. I love pets but at this point I just want to start from scratch with them.

Chrispy.5641:

So, I have an idea for cutting the 26 Traits that affect our pets in half to 13, so that way 1) the number of Ranger traits that affects their F1-4 class mechanic is in line with other professions, and so that way 2) Rangers can finally get more build options that aren’t forced to use pets. I need some help with what the idea should include. What I have so far is this::::

IDEA 1 (Condensing pet traits, and removing unecessary ones)
Beastmastery
- Rending Attacks, Stability Training, and Intimidation Training get condensed into one Trait. The reason they should be condensed is that no pet will ever benefit from any two of those traits anyways, and having to decide which one to bring kills build diversity more than helps it, because it forces you to chose one pet family to take for your two pets. (I understand that individually, some of these traits underperform as it is, but condensing them into 1 will open up Beastmastery to 2 new traits)

• Specialization Training – Your Pet gains a specialization based on their family.
  - Drake, Feline, Devourer, and Shark pets Bleed on Critical Hits
  - Ursine, Porcine, and Armor Fish pets gain Stability when disabled.
  - Activated F2 abilities for Canines, and Spiders cause Cripple.
  - Birds, Jellyfish, and Moas need an effect for them as well, since Vigorous Training no longer activates only when switching those specific pets.

- Compassion Training, Concentration Training, Expertise Training, Malicious Training, and Pet’s Prowess, need to be condensed into 2 traits, 1 for damage, 1 for support. The reason for this is, is with very few exceptions (Fern Hounds and Stalkers, for example), no pet benefits from any two of these traits by any significant margin, especially the ones related to healing and condition damage. This will also open us up for 2 new traits that actually do something for the Ranger, instead of our pets.

- Agility Training needs to be reworked or removed. If it is removed, then pets should move 30% faster by default, since they have enough of a hard time hitting moving targets.

- So far, that is 6 traits removed (2 in beastmastery, 1 in Skirmishing, and the other 3 depends on how the old ones were combined), reducing the number of pet traits we have to 20. Its a good start.

I have an alternate idea to change all pet related traits so that way they affect both the pet and the Ranger in some way as well. Still working on that one.

Condensing traits is a great idea, I hope devs considered doing it. I think they should add some new effects to existing traits as well (like adding a 20-30% attack speed for pets to “Agility Training” trait as well as a 30% movement speed). Anyway I like your “Walls of text”.

Spike trap should be a blast finisher, imo. Makes sense and could give trap rangers another niche (AoE frost armor anyone?).

Also, I think that the 5 pt trait in beastmastery should be scrapped and swapped with something that cures conditions when pet swapping.

Just buff the class already… stop stalling and fishing for development ideas your PAID employees cant seem to do.

Well if you’re going to keep traps as crit/crit dmg, I’d argue they should all be blast finishers. I’m not sure they’d have much value as such outside of roaming/dueling though, which is an area the Ranger doesn’t need too much help in (as a condi spec, all others are meh).

Jocksy.3415:

Chrispy.5641:

Greatsword is more than powerful as it is with the right skill combo. Does not need a buff. Does not need a nerf either though.

The problem is having to use all signets to have a burst…
All weapon should be potent on their own… and a big burst every 40-60 seconds is nothing. I agree something shall be done to keep burst in check, but not by keeping the weapon’s overall damage under the floor…

You’re right about that, and at this point its probably going to come down to Anet buffing the base damage of our weapons by a couple percentage points, then tinkering with the damage scaling so they don’t turn into an even bigger 1 shot burst in zerker/valkyrie/etc. gear.

That or just change around our weapons, and change the effects that signet of the hunt and Signet of the Wild do, since burst on our pet is pointless in this state of the game, and while its fun, our class’s entire burst should not rely on 1 single trick. (I still think Greatsword is one of our stronger weapons at higher power levels, even without those signets though)

Castaliea.3156:

Chrispy.5641:

I need some help with what the idea should include. What I have so far is this::::
-snip-
I have an alternate idea to change all pet related traits so that way they affect both the pet and the Ranger in some way as well. Still working on that one.

Mind if I help ya? Throw me a message at your leisure.

Edit: I started this and I have to say I really would just rather re-design the entire current Ranger/Pet design and then delete all the traits and start over. I love pets but at this point I just want to start from scratch with them.

Yeah,….starting from scratch might be a good idea, but I’m still holding out hope that pets can be saved if their AI is dealt with. The question though is whether or not any significant progress has been made on addressing that issue on Anet’s part?

(Also, I’ll be making a Thread in the Ranger Forum shortly in a few hours for my ideas for redesign ideas, since, at 6 posts long so far….its a wall of text even by my standards. I’ll post the link here when its up)

Edit :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Trait-Rework-ver-1/3647484

(way too long to post in this thread!)

Chrispy.5641:

Jocksy.3415:

Chrispy.5641:

Greatsword is more than powerful as it is with the right skill combo. Does not need a buff. Does not need a nerf either though.

The problem is having to use all signets to have a burst…
All weapon should be potent on their own… and a big burst every 40-60 seconds is nothing. I agree something shall be done to keep burst in check, but not by keeping the weapon’s overall damage under the floor…

You’re right about that, and at this point its probably going to come down to Anet buffing the base damage of our weapons by a couple percentage points, then tinkering with the damage scaling so they don’t turn into an even bigger 1 shot burst in zerker/valkyrie/etc. gear.

That or just change around our weapons, and change the effects that signet of the hunt and Signet of the Wild do, since burst on our pet is pointless in this state of the game, and while its fun, our class’s entire burst should not rely on 1 single trick. (I still think Greatsword is one of our stronger weapons at higher power levels, even without those signets though)

Castaliea.3156:

Chrispy.5641:

I need some help with what the idea should include. What I have so far is this::::
-snip-
I have an alternate idea to change all pet related traits so that way they affect both the pet and the Ranger in some way as well. Still working on that one.

Mind if I help ya? Throw me a message at your leisure.

Edit: I started this and I have to say I really would just rather re-design the entire current Ranger/Pet design and then delete all the traits and start over. I love pets but at this point I just want to start from scratch with them.

Yeah,….starting from scratch might be a good idea, but I’m still holding out hope that pets can be saved if their AI is dealt with. The question though is whether or not any significant progress has been made on addressing that issue on Anet’s part?

(Also, I’ll be making a Thread in the Ranger Forum shortly in a few hours for my ideas for redesign ideas, since, at 6 posts long so far….its a wall of text even by my standards. I’ll post the link here when its up)

I’ve been there. I’m made those 6 post long threads multiple times. I can’t do it anymore. I know they don’t care, even if they asked, and it stops me from finishing a lot of stuff. They do what they want.

I just hope this CDI improvement to Rangers actually have an effect and things to change.

Your right, they do, and there is way too much doom and gloom in those forums, and most balance, rework threads are largely ignored, but, I’m not creating a new thread in the balance forums until I have a solid idea.

(also, that thread I created is here ::: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Trait-Rework-ver-1/3647484

There is a chance many of you wont be happy with some of the changes, but, who knows?)

I just want to point out, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody, but I think that just saying it is valuable, that for every single person who posts their own suggestions, that every single person reworks the longbow.

I mean, if we could take a vote, I’m just going to speculate since it really isn’t necessary, that the longbow would be the weapon that comes in #1 for needing the most improvement.

The honorable mention would of course be the 1 handed sword, which would come in so close that I could actually be mistaking a close win for a tie between the two weapons.

Just an interesting thought. Browsing through these 10 pages so far, the three most suggested changes come down to the longbow, 1 handed sword, and pet. Just as general topics.

The pet easily being the most discussed, most suggested for rework topic of the entire thread, which from a development perspective as far as a priority flowchart goes, probably should have come even before how the weapons functioned, seeing as how the pet was made to be the class mechanic, which kind of really defines the class.

So, that being said, and that assumption being made, hopefully we are looking at a CDI topic that is productive in discussing the next step in a pet development/revamp with of course the obligatory weapon revamps as they are next in line as one of the key parts of a class that drastically affects gameplay.

Quick Idea that popped into my head:

What if the Empathic Bond was removed and integrated into part of the pets basic functionality (also, before I get jumped on, yes, the ranger would need more condition removal outside of this, and currently already does).

So, if the pet is on passive (basically, not trying to attack a target, so like, if you F3’d it as well), then the pet would pull x amount of conditions to itself every y seconds.

Then there could be traits that either effect how long those conditions last on the pet, or give the pet and player a buff for every condition pulled, and as a grandmaster trait, the pet can now pull conditions to itself while it is attacking, and transfers x conditions on itself to the opponent with a successful attack every y seconds.

Just a thought. Something that I think would definitely be more interesting than how it currently works.

Muddy Terrain should be turned into a trap, as proposed before, but keeping its range (so no loss there). Alternatively, Muddy Terrain could be changed into multiple bear traps (like this: http://youtu.be/DGiRlGyuMkk?t=51s). This would allow to snare 1 enemy multiple times, if he steps on multiple traps, or snare as many enemies as you have bear traps. You could also add a new combofield, which would immobilize on explofinishers and cripple on leap/projectile finishers.

My vision for RANGER BALANCE

A little bit about me. I main a ranger (trapper roamer) but also have lvl 80’s of Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. I do think that traps survival and spirits are good. I do think Shouts need a lit of help.

THE PROBLEM WITH RANGERS

The second problem is that the class is designed to be a 2v1 class but it its more like 1 v 1 with a side kick that doesn’t do much. Pets have trouble hitting player targets that move! For it to be a true 2v1, the enemy should have to think about whether or not he should consider killing the pet, not just going for ranger. The ranger lacks the ability to make his pet a real threat in a fight!

Rangers lack damage and burst. No weapon has ANY burst on it except for maul. Both Bows and the sword get their damage from #1 and are better at sustained DPS.

THE SOLUTION
To introduce more burst options to the ranger and increase more CC. More CC will in turn increase pet damage by allowing them to hit immobilized stunned and crippled targets. This makes pet a real threat!

SHOUTS
They need a rework. In some cases shouts are just used to proc Natures voice, extremely sad. Rework shouts so that and help Pets hit more to increase their effectiveness.

Sickem Changed to “Hit Hard” (CD also lowered) – for pet burst
Reveal 4 seconds
Your next attack immobilizes your foe (3 seconds) and your pets next two attacks deal 100% more damage.

Guard changed to “Watch Out” – good for defense and zerg play
Your pet gains protection and retaliation (5 seconds) and you gain vigor (4 seconds)
Stun Breaker

• Search and Rescue changed to “Special Attack”* – good for pet interaction and burst
  Recharge your pets skills and F2 instantly, refresh Pet Skill que.

Guard – A naturally instinct for a pet to guard its on territory.
Your Pet protects an area of your choosing gaining +30% damage and +20% speed for 10 seconds. Allies in the area gain 3 seconds of protection.

Signet of Hunt because its active is a little weak.
Your pets next attack is an attack of opportunity and cripples foes (3 second cripple)

TRAITS-I could touch on many more but here are a few key ones.

REMORSELESS – more opportunities to regain OS and burst
Changed to “You regain opening strikes whenever you disable.” (daze, Stun, Knock back)

New trait, “Foot specialist”
Immobilize and Cripple last 50% longer.

I want to see this in the BM line as it will help pets hit opponents more.
Consolidate a BM trait because they are ALL over the place.

WEAPONS

Warhorn
Skill #4 10% chance to inflict a random condition on each attack conditions last 3 seconds
(2 stacks vulnerability)
(Blind)
(Daze .25 seconds)

LONGBOW
With the remorseless change LB still needs a power attack. it would work well with stealth.

Rapid fire changed to Power shot
Cast time 1.25 Seconds
Shoot a powerful shot. Deals extra damage to vulnerable foes.

This allows for GREAT play with stealth, you can stealth with Hunters shot and then charge your power shot. Power shot can also be used after point blank for a remorseless.

rename class druid
let us use a mace
let us wear light armor
replace longbow with staff
swap spirits and pets

Azure.8670:

rename class druid
let us use a mace
let us wear light armor
replace longbow with staff
swap spirits and pets

Agreed entirely.

Pets should be on cast, spirit should be out permanently. This will allow for more tactical pet use, (On CC).

Also would like to see staff as a melee weapon for a Druid-like class.

As a ranger lover, I always feel like pets are useless in WvW zerg fights. You can’t simply send a pet to enemy zerg.
I just dream this : An option to completely stow your pet from pet menu(K) and gain 20% attack buff for your character to play without pet for your optional preference. That would make nice archers from rangers in WvW, and possibly new builds for crowded fights.

Azure.8670:

rename class druid
let us use a mace
let us wear light armor
replace longbow with staff
swap spirits and pets

They can add a new class “Ritualist” for that. (From Gw1)

CDI collaboration got delayed guys and got moved on wednesday.

Well… Is it just me or that signals a red flag?

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

AEFA.9035:

CDI collaboration got delayed guys and got moved on wednesday.

Well… Is it just me or that signals a red flag?

Not at all! It’s presidents day so you have no idea if they are understaffed from people taking vacations to be with their families on a longer weekend, and it could also indicate that the devs might have needed extra time to actually read through this thread and make notes, that way the CDI discussion doesn’t become an act of reciting information from this thread in a different thread.

The best way the devs can possibly handle this CDI is to read through this entire thread and make the necessary notes, especially regarding the general concept behind the specifics of the balance changes that get accepted. That way, they can start the topic off by explaining what they already know and agree with, and we can make some progress beyond what this thread is providing.

Hopefully those things are what the delay is for.

Kain Francois.4328:

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

I would absolutely love to see this, especially after such amazing builds like R/Rt spirit spammer and splinter barrage. Just letting you know I agree and +1

jcbroe.4329:

Kain Francois.4328:

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

I would absolutely love to see this, especially after such amazing builds like R/Rt spirit spammer and splinter barrage. Just letting you know I agree and +1

Hell, I don’t know…
I feel like the devs had spend lots of time before release working out a concept for the ranger. While some ideas (maybe lots of them) haven’t worked out as intended, I still think that the underlaying concept is fine. Your suggestions, despite them beeing good ones, would change the whole class mechanic and turn the ranger into another class, which he wasn’t intended to be in the first place.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

jcbroe.4329:

Kain Francois.4328:

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

I would absolutely love to see this, especially after such amazing builds like R/Rt spirit spammer and splinter barrage. Just letting you know I agree and +1

Hell, I don’t know…
I feel like the devs had spend lots of time before release working out a concept for the ranger. While some ideas (maybe lots of them) haven’t worked out as intended, I still think that the underlaying concept is fine. Your suggestions, despite them beeing good ones, would change the whole class mechanic and turn the ranger into another class, which he wasn’t intended to be in the first place.

I agree, those are really good but it would be a 360 move from the developers.

Whats so hard I think for the devs in balancing this class is its class mechanics. Its like GW1 all over again with Ranger, and only Ranger have this problem because of the mandatory pet mechanics. Having pet mechanics as Ranger is like having a secondary profession, I think maybe thats one of the reasons why suggestions and ideas for Rangers even way back then haven’t been implemented properly in game.

And thanks I didn’t know its presidency day in the US.

still think my druid + pet and spirit swap is the way to go

jcbroe.4329:

Kain Francois.4328:

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

I would absolutely love to see this, especially after such amazing builds like R/Rt spirit spammer and splinter barrage. Just letting you know I agree and +1

WTB Splinter Weapon. 1,000 ecto. Kthnx.

AEFA.9035:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

jcbroe.4329:

Kain Francois.4328:

Hmm… I would like to see the Ranger borrow more from the Ritualist. Afterall, it’s not like we can’t already call down lightning bolts upon our foes.

I would absolutely love to see this, especially after such amazing builds like R/Rt spirit spammer and splinter barrage. Just letting you know I agree and +1

Hell, I don’t know…
I feel like the devs had spend lots of time before release working out a concept for the ranger. While some ideas (maybe lots of them) haven’t worked out as intended, I still think that the underlaying concept is fine. Your suggestions, despite them beeing good ones, would change the whole class mechanic and turn the ranger into another class, which he wasn’t intended to be in the first place.

I agree, those are really good but it would be a 360 move from the developers.

Whats so hard I think for the devs in balancing this class is its class mechanics. Its like GW1 all over again with Ranger, and only Ranger have this problem because of the mandatory pet mechanics. Having pet mechanics as Ranger is like having a secondary profession, I think maybe thats one of the reasons why suggestions and ideas for Rangers even way back then haven’t been implemented properly in game.

And thanks I didn’t know its presidency day in the US.

I don’t think that it needs to take the entire 360 and borrow super heavily from the Ritualist, and I’m sorry that it seems that I’ve implied that.

Moreover, I think that conceptually, the rangers and ritualists were already similar in guild wars 1, with the main difference being that rangers had a heavier focus on self support where ritualists were more focused towards group support.

We already have mechanics that ritualists had in guild wars 1 in different forms, like being able to apply special properties (bleeding for the next 5 attacks, but still) to our weapons and summoning a spirit that heals allies.

Moving forward, if the devs could take other ideas that would work great in this game, like a spirit that reduces the damage done to allies at the cost of it’s own health, or splinter weapon or other weapon enhancements, and then rework them into existing functions, so that now, Guard makes allies take less damage in an AoE range at the cost of the pets health for it’s duration, and can be cancelled with return, or making Grandmaster Traits like Splinter Arrows which would add cleave to bows, I think that it would fit very conceptually well with rangers in the game since rangers while bring some of the utility, support, and damage capabilities from the mechanics of Guild Wars 1 that would work very well for this class.

I don’t in any way wish that the ranger was a shamanistic summoner/supporter though, I just think that some our existing options can borrow some more mechanics from guild wars 1 that worked mechanically well in different environments in that game, and then thematically fit them into Guild Wars 2, and if it is done right, it would be such a seamless transition that only us veterans and the people who actually read these text walls would know where the changes came from.

All I can say right now is make pet stats scale with gear and make pet melee attacks have a leap function with their animation… pretty much what the one hand sword does for the ranger right now, or what the moa morph attack one does, a while back someone tested that a moa morphed pet does more melee dmg than a normal melee pet because the attacks make them leap at the moving target.

Also I guess something should be mentioned about leaning rangers to more successful power specs? right now rangers don’t have any competent power builds in anything out side of PvE. this could possibly be fixed by allowing pet stats to scale with ranger power gear or by readjusting the damage multipliers to skills and weapons that are not condition based, such as the great sword, spear, longbow, axe offhand and war horn abilities. And as everyone has previously mentioned having our utilities be more useful without heavily investing trait points to make them affect us as well as our pets or allow them to be thrown, etc.

Wanna add something about pets:
1. I do not understand, as I point out why the last ability, whether to put it to passive or aggressive stance, has no F4 button bound (or the option to bound it to any button at all). Also why only those 2 option:
a. First in every game I’ve played there is always at least a third stance – Guard – pet attacks only if attacked (or owned gets attacked).
b. May be a patrol option for when u want to hold a point in pvp and u want to cover 2 entrance at once?
2. First “skill” so to speak or F1 (original bound key) it “Attack MY target”. Now I do not understand why its not just “Attack Target”, this way Ranger can hit one target, pet another. Much better control in battle and all.
3. F2 skill, should have a clear way of targeting – like I use F2 and if Target (big red thingy is what I mean, not just left clicking on someone) then the ability(those that are for enemies) should be used on target, not on what ever gets on the way.
4. I stow a pet, this usually means I do not want it for some reason – why is the pet popping out when I get dmg of any sorce? I may want to save it for a later stage of the battle, or may be I do not want it to draw agro on 12345 in PvE… or just think that poor creature is ugly and wanna hide it from the world, either way Stow means don’t show up unless I say so pls..
5. Also something important at least for PvE (this might make it OP in other aspects of the game) – Since Dodging is insanely big part of this game, and pet has no ability to do it – problem. Some bosses have Super attacks – 1 hit down, how to save the pet? U can switch, yes, but bosses tend to attack a bit more often then once every 15 seconds(if traited). Again Not cool!. And that trait – gaining protection on dodge – boss hits with 50k – go protect your pet from that… either give it dodge as Ranger is dodging (If ranger is dodging pet should mimic), or make that HP of his reliable. (Favorite examples are Fract bosses – Mossman double axe hit – 2 pets down in like 10 sec). Also Stow option might be useful here, if there is some sort of timer on it, so u decide to save your pet from death, but penalty will be not being able to spawn it again in certain period and s.o.
I don’t think those stuffs will make anything OP or will even need balance testing, its just for better control during battles.

P.s. Also I’ve seen A LOT of names of pets that just begs for a Report – No option. Character name is in norm, what do I report it then?. At least add option for a small comment over reports if not something else.. If I report it for offencive Nickname – u check it – its OK, no Action taken…

Criminal.5627:

Also I guess something should be mentioned about leaning rangers to more successful power specs? right now rangers don’t have any competent power builds in anything out side of PvE. this could possibly be fixed by allowing pet stats to scale with ranger power gear or by readjusting the damage multipliers to skills and weapons that are not condition based, such as the great sword, spear, longbow, axe offhand and war horn abilities. And as everyone has previously mentioned having our utilities be more useful without heavily investing trait points to make them affect us as well as our pets or allow them to be thrown, etc.

It’s the lack of AE and burst holding back Ranger power builds.

While I like the idea of having more ritualist elements In the game, it was my main in gw1, I can’t help but feel suggeations such as these are just plain silly bones. Development is about resources, time, money and manpower.
If they don’t have the resources to fix AI and animation delay, there is no way in hell they have the resources to overhaul the ranger. Be realistic.

I hope once the CDI on this profession gets going that we can focus in on ideas that are actually practical to implement and actually fix or work around the problems.
I love a good pie in the sky idea as much as the next bloke, but we need sensible propositions.

Yoh.8469:

While I like the idea of having more ritualist elements In the game, it was my main in gw1, I can’t help but feel suggeations such as these are just plain silly bones. Development is about resources, time, money and manpower.
If they don’t have the resources to fix AI and animation delay, there is no way in hell they have the resources to overhaul the ranger. Be realistic.

I hope once the CDI on this profession gets going that we can focus in on ideas that are actually practical to implement and actually fix or work around the problems.
I love a good pie in the sky idea as much as the next bloke, but we need sensible propositions.

I bet you its easier to rebuild this class from the ground up than it is to reconstruct AI

One more thing – Is it me, or melee pets are the only melee thing on this game that has no splash dmg???

^ If you’re talking cleave, then only drakes have cleave on their auto.

EDIT: Seems wiki also says pigs have cleave on their KD skill. Can anyone confirm it?

Azure.8670:

Yoh.8469:

While I like the idea of having more ritualist elements In the game, it was my main in gw1, I can’t help but feel suggeations such as these are just plain silly bones. Development is about resources, time, money and manpower.
If they don’t have the resources to fix AI and animation delay, there is no way in hell they have the resources to overhaul the ranger. Be realistic.

I hope once the CDI on this profession gets going that we can focus in on ideas that are actually practical to implement and actually fix or work around the problems.
I love a good pie in the sky idea as much as the next bloke, but we need sensible propositions.

I bet you its easier to rebuild this class from the ground up than it is to reconstruct AI

Unless they decide to integrate any sort of AI whatsoever, than not entirely, it would still be easier to leave the spirit AI (which in itself is a fairly simplistic AI compared to others in the game) than to start from the ground up.

I think that ANet in the long run would benefit from rebuilding pieces of their code anyhow, since after witnessing how updates “break” things across the game, it becomes obvious that there is so much code inheriting from different sources that it makes it very difficult to make even the most minor of balance changes, like adding a trait that gives fury on crit to a Greatsword, without “breaking” other things.

Not to say that how they wrote the code with the use of inheritance isn’t useful or beneficial, but it seems like, with the amount of changes that a balance team or skill team typically makes over the lifespan of an MMO (at least, the amount of changes a good company makes to work towards the ever elusive balance equilibrium), that over time it would actually be less work to just rewrite the necessary code so that making changes has less overall impact on other codes, or creates less “ripples.”

Specifically how that relates to ranger balance, if the devs could spend less time rewriting code and didn’t have to put as much necessary QA into changes because those changes aren’t affecting as many things, it would open up more opportunity to work on completing balance changes in the pipeline so that valuable changes or “big” changes happen more often.

It would also give the devs more time to work on improving things like pet AI in the long run. I just hope that is somebody’s job to be going through the code and rewriting anything that is inherited and in a way that makes huge problems when only making slight changes.