Guild Wars 2

First, I would like to say that I utterly love the ranger. A ranger was my main in GW1 for almost 7 years and has continued to be in GW2. Despite the “SB nerf” and the multiple “bugs” the ranger experiences, I believe that it is an amazing class and is far from the class that needs the most attention (look to the ele).

That being said I believe that there are some simple fixes that would people less upset about the ranger, and a couple more complicated fixes that would be required to make the ranger a little more versatile/up to par with some of the other classes. Also here I will say that I am using the warrior and a bar, not because the ranger should be able to do what the warrior does(they are different professions after all), but because I believe that the warrior was the most well done class and really plays the way it was intended to.

DR note, look for bold text to get the main points at the end

1)The Ranger mechanic – the pet
First off I love the way that Anet decided to add in the pet. In GW1 I would have to sacrifice half my skill bar and almost half my attribute points to make it even worthwhile bringing my pet with me. Now I can enjoy the company of my pet without paying too much attention to it if I don’t want to. Not only that, but the way I have decided to build, my pet is now a major threat to those who decide to ignore it.

However, there are multiple things wrong with the pet.
1) They die too easily in almost all situations even with micro-managing
2) They can’t attack on the move
3) The broken responsiveness of f2 abilities

These I believe are the major issues with the pet. The last 2 should be fairly simple to fix. The broken responsiveness is a bug that has been acknowledge by Anet but seems to not have gotten much attention so far. This is a major thing that would instantly make pets better. Also, the long animations on these skills are a problem. By the time my pet gets off the animation, their target has moved out of range. Now occasionally I’ve seen my pet queue up its f2, get the animation off, then leap like 20 feet to the target to make the attack hit, which is awesome. If that’s how the f2 always works so that it would hit just like the target was standing next to the pet then i have no problem. Actually this would add some additional skill to the ranger, making it so that players have to account for the animation time when they are trying to get a f2 skill off. But either way, all f2 skills need to either have a fix where they will hit like normal up to a certain range that makes the f2 skills feasible, or Anet needs to flat out cut the animation times of alot of f2 abilities.

Next, pets do need some kind of survivability boost. Should they be invincible? No. Should they die at the simplest hint of an AoE or from more than 3 mobs pounding on them? No. There needs to be some kind of balance. Now before anyone starts to QQ and tell me I am not micro-managing my pet or not building right I am going to stop you right there. At first yes, I did not do any of that. But now in normal situations my pet rarely dies. But as soon as I get into large fights or a dungeon, the amount of AoE or massive hits certain dungeon mobs deal out will take out my pet instantly. The solution: give pets some sort of passive AoE mitigation, enough to keep them alive for more than a split second in PvP. People shouldn’t have to feel like they are playing two players when coming up against a ranger in PvP, but they should need to have to take the time to deal with the pet instead of just being able to one shot it with a simple AoE.

Finally the move-and-attack problem. The fact that pets have both bugged f2 skills and can’t move and attack severely limits the ranger DPS. Ranger DPS alone is already lower than any other class because 40%(just a random stat) of our damage output is given to our pet. Now if the pet was functioning properly, then this would be no problem at all, but that fact that our pets can’t hit moving targets, in a game where combat is supposed to be fluid, is a severe cripple to the ranger compared to the other classes.

2) Ranger weapons – fixes, suggestions, and what not

The ranger has some great weapons available, I constantly see people QQ on the forums about how the ranger has crappy weapon skills and only 1 or 2 viable weapons. On some points I agree, some of the weapons need some tweaks, but for the most part people need to see the general usefulness of these weapons.

Axe – I love this wep on both main-hand and off-hand. It needs no major fixes at all, although I have two suggestions: 1) a slight boost the the 1 ability’s dmg by maybe 10%. If you are going up against a mob, this wep set rocks, but the aoe dmg isn’t a good enough trade-off for the low damage. Other classes are able to put out a much larger amount of aoe dmg much more easily. This isn’t completely necessary, but it would make axes much more viable. 2) the 4 skill (1 on off-hand) – I just don’t see the benefit of this skill. Sure it hits twice and its some nice dmg, but its nothing really all that special. Another skill that gives the axe some more functionality would be nice, but again this isn’t necessary. Just a thought.

Torch – Nothing wrong here, works fine.

Warhorn – another amazing wep set that needs nothing fixed.

Dagger – great weapon, i love it. One suggestion however, making the 5 skill able to bounce between up to 2 or 3 foes would be nice. Just gives the weapon more functionality and gives the ranger a little more CC. Again not necessary, but this is def a change I would like to see. If this means a reduction in the dmg of the skill per hit, i would be ok with it.

1H-Sword – The skills on the weapon are amazing, the only problem is they are bugged. The 1 skill chain roots the player in place, making dodging and activating other skills a problem. The 2 skill doesn’t hit if terrain isn’t flat alot of the time and its range seems to be less than indicated on the tooltip. The three skill seems to work fine to me so no problem there. Once these bugs are fixed, the wep will be fine.

Greatsword – The skill set on this wep and how they work is perfect. The only thing I would change is the damage for this wep overall. During beta the greatsword was kinda OP, but after the pre-launch nerfs, this wep has kinda gone down the drain dmg wise. Some people argue that the AoE from the swing is why the dmg is so low. But then why do warriors, and guardians, and such get good dmg with their swings too. The greatsword doesn’t need a massive boost just something like 25% to bring it up to par.

Longbow – A lot of people think this weapon is horrible and not worth the time, I completely disagree. I love this weapon, the skills are well thought out and all have their uses. There are two changes to this weapon that i think would solve alot of the hatred. 1) increase the fire-rate a little bit, not too much but like maybe by 10-20%. 2) Add an additional mechanic to the 1 skill. Right now the skill functions in a way where damage is penalized if you are closer to a target. Let’s face it, no matter what it is hard to keep a certain distance from your target, especially in pvp. What this skill needs is something like a 20% chance to cripple or something along those lines. This gives the ranger a more passive way to keep enemies at a distance and use their longbow to its highest capacity.

Shortbow – I know there has been alot of QQing lately about the recent shortbow “nerf.” Honestly I don’t think that there has been much of a change in regular play, however QZ has definitely been significantly nerfed when using a shortbow. My suggestion, bring QZ speed up so its higher than it is now but still lower than before. Also due to the fire-rate decrease I think that a small increase in damage is viable and would not be game breaking.

3)Utilities – fixes and changes
There are some serious problems with some of the ranger utilities right now.
First the spirits. These things die way too fast and offer too little to even be considered for a utility slot. They either need to be given a serious health and armor buff so they don’t die when something looks at them, while at the same time be given a small buff to their effects. OR, the better option, make these things like a warrior banner, they provide passive buffs and can’t be killed. To help with balance, if Anet needs to, make them targetable once a player activates their active skill until the recharge is down, BUT make sure they don’t die in 2 seconds when they are targetable.

Second, the signets, some of the passives are pretty great, but they don’t offer a good enough active for me to want to loose the passive like signets from other classes such as necro or guardian. I don’t know how exactly to change this specifically but something needs to be done (I know not the most constructive, but my creative juices are running out)

I think with these changes not only would ranger be made viable again for all the people that think its a useless class, but it would also fix the major bugs that are hindering the ranger.

In summary:
Pets
1)make them more survivable
2)fix f2 responsiveness and animations
3)add move-and-attack
Apply fixes/improvements to certain ranger weapons
Make some of the utilities more viable

Completely agree on the longbow and shortbow points. I just posted something similar about them in my own thread. Glad people like you have a deep understanding of the class

I like longbow as well.

I’ld love a fumble or endurance regen penalty on the 1, slighlty faster activation time on the 4.

Use of longbow could be enhanced perhaps with added functionality in a utility, I’ld look at a spirit and a 45 second cd to recall to the spirit from within 1200 range. Essentially a tactical way to move up elevation gain range. Swoop is great but vertically challenged. maps actually have decent sniper nest placement, a quick way back in would be real handy. Node defense with a longbow innevitably means a reset jump down climb back contest switch at melee even.

Axe4 is a 100% projectile finisher, I think that is it’s purpose.

A pet peeve of mine is the Moa protection buff not lasting 10 seconds but 4. a 10 second protection buff would be a great help to tanky builds and cannon builds. It needs fixing.

This was mine version of this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Integrating-GW2-Skill-Design/first#post422342

I got fed up with trying to section off my posts so I just made it a Google docs.
I have a couple things to change on the Ranger suggestions list but it’s still mostly all there. Figured I’d throw it in because it seemed to fit with this threads goal as well.

i think the rate of fire for the long bow would be fine. if they would speed up the travel speed of the arrows. As it is right now about 50% or more will miss the target if it is moveing. if you have a ranger shooting a long bow at you just keep strafing back and forth and most the shots will miss.

I disagree Majik, I think both need to happen. This is because the longbow currently in close quarter combat is clunky as all hell and way too slow for the fast paced style of combat in tpvp. ( I know it isn’t designed for that but that needs to change [Please read my post titled “The longbow and the shortbow” for further details]) I’m not suggesting it be up there in speed with the shortbow, but faster than it is today. It will also help arrows land a lot more.

another thing i would like to add about the long bow is that i think the rapid fire damage seems kind of low for a 5 sec channel. i took my warrior and ranger into the mist so the gear would be the same quality. i used my high power crit build with the ranger and the toughness build that i plan on useing at max lvl with warrior. the average rapid fire with the warriors rifle was about 500 less than the rangers and the warriors is only a 2.5 sec channel.

there is one thing i would like to touch on about the war horn also. this is the hawks. not sure if you have noticed this but if you cast your hawks on some one then they quickly jump behind a wall or something the rest of the hits the hawks would have done will say obstucted. people can also dodge after the hawks start hitting them to avoid the rest of the hits. this just doesnt seem right to me the hawks mechanics are pretty much like a DoT.

1. Option to Stowaway PET till I bring it back.
2. Pets have 0 survivability in dungeons.
3. Keep my pet right next too me.
4. Canines leap and miss a lot.
5. When my PET has done finishing off my target sometimes it attacks another on it’s own not even close to the downed enemy.

1. FIX longbow make it viable…you guys want to have us stop spamming 1 on shortbow then fix the longbow so we can use it. Faster Eagle shot would be good.
I wish I could give you more input on longbow but honestly because of Skill 1 and 3 I don’t use it very much because those 2 skills are useless.

2. Fix QZ nerf was too harsh.

3. Obstruction sometimes when it should clearly be a shot.

Make targetable traps have a longer cast range like Necros
Obstruction and arrow spped to target.
Pets need a complete rebuild.

Good stuff – a well formatted and thorough summary of the major faults of our class. I hope that the developers see this post.

@Arrys I think you might have something going with the spirit but I don’t think I really understand what you want it to do. Maybe you could explain it more? On the axe 4 skill, I don’t think being a combo finisher is a reason enough to have a skill. IMO Anet should add some more functionality to this skill, being a combo finisher would be a bonus (NOTE: this is nowhere near high priority compared to the other things that need to be fixed.)

@Majik On rapid fire, I admit I haven’t tested this extensively but I am speaking from alot of play time from on my ranger. Yes, when comparing the skills alone side by side the warrior rapid fire will come out on top dmg wise. But what I think you are not considering is that a good portion of the Ranger’s damage is given over to the pet. Some people see this as a flaw, but honestly if you take the time to learn the class this is a great asset. You now have a good amount of damage coming from 2 sources, and if the pets were more survivable, ranger might actually be OP to an extent. But back to rapid fire, when you add the skill dmg to the dmg your pet is dishing out, ranger will be up to par with warrior once some of the bugs are fixed. But overall nothing is inherently wrong with the skill, juts other aspects of the profession. However, I completely agree on the warhorn and I believe this should be looked into. If this is how the skill was intended to work, a acknowledgement from a dev would be nice (but we know thats not likely to happen.)

@Bronx Pets don’t need a complete rebuild, just minor fixes, look to OP. On traps, if you are saying you want traps to become the equiv of necro marks you are saying you pretty much want a necro with a bow. If you really want this ability i would suggest speccing fully into the crit trait line to be able to ground target your traps and make them larger (which is quite viable in certain situations). However, just look at the word of the skill: TRAP. The point is to lay down a trap and lure your enemies into them. Believe when used right along side a properly microed pet, you can be a 1 man killing machine.

Drok Kindleshot.1496:

1. Option to Stowaway PET till I bring it back.
2. Pets have 0 survivability in dungeons.
3. Keep my pet right next too me.
4. Canines leap and miss a lot.
5. When my PET has done finishing off my target sometimes it attacks another on it’s own not even close to the downed enemy.

1. FIX longbow make it viable…you guys want to have us stop spamming 1 on shortbow then fix the longbow so we can use it. Faster Eagle shot would be good.
I wish I could give you more input on longbow but honestly because of Skill 1 and 3 I don’t use it very much because those 2 skills are useless.

2. Fix QZ nerf was too harsh.

3. Obstruction sometimes when it should clearly be a shot.

I will start out by apologizing for the bluntness that this response is gonna use. But honestly, looking over your suggestions, you clearly don’t fully understand the class. I am not saying you are a noob and should learn how to play, but you are missing out on certain aspects that will solve some of the problems. Also I divided my responses into sections according to how you organized your thoughts

Section 1
Pets have 0 survivability in dungeons? I am sorry but you are just plain wrong. The past couple of days i have done over 20 exp dungeon runs on my ranger. And i can proudly say that almost 60-70% of the time, my pet was alive. Yes I was using devourers, but that’s because i know to adapt, sending in my wolves into a massive zerg and AoE bonanza would get them killed in less than a second. Do pets need more survivability? Yes. But are they just walking corpses? Definately not, your pet needs to play like you in a dungeon, you can’t have them bum rush and expect them to live. Nor should they enter the fight immediately, please micro in dungeons, its the most important thing. That being said, pets do need a survivability buff, just look to the OP.

1. YES. But this doesn’t mean you should get a passive buff if you choose to stow your pet (I know you didn’t say that but a lot of people have suggested it so i decided to bring it up). Just because YOU decide not to use the class mechanic doesn’t mean that you should get a buff. If you want to be able to permanently stow your pet until you choose to bring it out then great, i personally would love this in some instances. But in no case should you get a buff because of that. That would be like an ele saying i only want to use fire magic, but i should get the benefits of the other attunements still.

Not sure what you mean about #2, maybe you could explain. #4 should be fixed with f2 responsiveness. #5 this shouldn’t happen, probably a bug and would be nice to see it fixed.

section 2
I’m not going to go into skill 1 for too long, if you want my opinion look at the OP. But the 1 skill is not useless, the mechanic is just broken (kinda). Skill 3 is nowhere near useless. 1) vulnerability, this is a major boost to your DPS and will let you be a dmg machine. 2) the swiftness buff, using this skill at the start of a fight not only lets you get a quick spike out, but it makes your pet close the gap very quickly. Now if you’re built like I am this means your opponent has to deal with you and your pet much sooner than they would like, and you can get off a great spike before they can counter.

1. i agree, just look to my OP for more detail. On #3, i haven’t really encountered this problem but alot of people have. I’ll look into it, if it is a bug it should be fixed.

@ Naturemaster

i think what he is talking about in 3 (keep my pet right next to me) is that sometimes your pet will run ahead of you.

there have been time that i kill the mob by a tree, then i run up to chop the tree down. As soon as i stop to start chopping the pet does not stop with me he runs ahead about 50 yards and grabs another pack of mobs for me to kill.

i may be wrong but this is the only thing i can think he is talking about.

o never mind you were asking about number 2.

as far as number 5 this is caused by the pet not being on passive. the target he is chasing at some time hit ranger or his pet, or the target was hit by the ranger or pet. AE causes this alot.

while i was lvling my ranger i noticed when using AE mainly axe the axe would bounce and hit a weapon rack or something. every time a killed a mob he would keep wanting to go back and kill the weapon rack.

My suggestions on how to Fix the LB:
Increasing the Longbow missle speed would go a long way in increasing the effectiveness. It would be a net DPS increase but the abilities wouldn’t need to do more damage. The problem with the “obstructed” issue we face with long bow is that even one missed auto attack arrow can be a huge loss in damage.

Increase the missle speed would make these misses less painful. It would also make dodging the arrows less easy – right now the LB auto attack is the easiest missle to dodge because it’s slower than anything else. Compare the Skill 1 to the Warrior LB Skill 1 and you’ll see what I mean. The warriors arrows fly strait like a cross bow bolt with very little arc, the ranger arrow fires with a very high, very slow arc.

Also make hunter’s shot a “draw” ability (I’ve suggested this before). You can single tap hunter’s shot for the same damage and effect as it is now but you can hold the button for a castbar and you will increase the damage based on how long you held it (to a max). We often use this ability as our opener and this change would give it a litle more punch and play into the sniper feel the longbow is supposed to give us.

My suggestion for shortbow:
I made a big post last week, about the SB found here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Short-Bow-changes-making-it-better/first#post413665

with the animation fix to the shortbow I think adding the Eagle Eye trait in Marksman to include SB range and damage would help a lot of SB builds.

My suggestions on utilities:
Sigils: Give the active effects something far sexier – I would even go so far as to suggest that they should all operate as if we have the Signet of the Beastmaster trait. Right now there is no reason to click the sigils with their rediculus cooldowns and minor effects.

Increase runspeed of Signet of the Hunt. 10% speed is not enough for the mobile hunter that the Ranger is supposed to be. Even 15% would be better then what it is now.

Change, scrap or improve all of the shout utilities. With the exception of Protect me, they are all pretty bad and I never see them in any reasonable build. Sick ’Em might feature strongly in a few BM builds if pets could move and attack at the same time.

Get rid of the shouts or give them secondary – group effects that also effect the ranger to improve them and make a ranger more useful to a group.

Examples:
Protect me also gives AoE protection
Sick ’Em also gives AoE might/fury
Search and Rescue gives AoE regen
Guard Here reveals stealth in the area the pet is guarding.

These simple and small changes would make those terrible skills somewhat more appealing (but still pretty bad).

Spirits: Reduce the AoE damage they take or make them invulnverable and decrease their effectiveness or duration.

My suggestions on improving pets:
Make them attack and move at the same time.
Seriously.
Don’t work on anything else right now.
This is the biggest problem for rangers right now and if this were fixed today I would play my ranger again. Anet said they wouldn’t ship the game until pets were 100%. Well…they aren’t. I can even live with the long F2 cast times and delays if this were fixed.

Oh yeah. Fix the F2 delays and cast time. Have drake breath track their target and wolf howls and bear roars go off quickly or on the move.

Decrease AoE damage or have pets “evade” or block one attack at low health to give the ranger a chance to recall the pet. And one quibble about the VO “my pet is low” audio that my character shouts out…maybe have him do that before the pet is actually dead. Might help out a player that is watching the fight and not the pet bar.

I agree with a lot of what Lobo says on pet survivability. I think it would be very awesome if when the player dodged an attack then the pet also “evaded”. This results in the pet being able to survive longer and giving the player a more direct control over damage incoming. It also allows the pet to “stay” on the target (and I use the word stay lightly)

Naturemastr Artemos.4021:

@Arrys I think you might have something going with the spirit but I don’t think I really understand what you want it to do. Maybe you could explain it more? On the axe 4 skill, I don’t think being a combo finisher is a reason enough to have a skill. IMO Anet should add some more functionality to this skill, being a combo finisher would be a bonus (NOTE: this is nowhere near high priority compared to the other things that need to be fixed.)

Ok on the spirits their health was nerfed to the point a single weak AOE drops them 2 weak or 1 strong aoe if health doubled. (I literally tried running some tests with them in HOTM and they died so fast I couldn’t test if anything benefitted them) This makes using them mobile a wasted 30 point talent in most scenarios. You can tactically use them as turrets carefully placed, however(Buff ignores LOS). It also makes the GTAOE functions of them really not that good for a 60 second CD ability because they are single attack kills short radius even buffed and you really do need to hide them in low no traffic positions in a PvP context anyways. You can’t do a run through with them trailing and pop their specials they die. So understanding they apparently want them weak to damage they really aren’t designed well to the adjusted state at release. When they were more durable their proximity AOE effects had much more functionality.

So redesign at least some of their secondary abilities away from proximity based AOE. In PvP you all but have to hide them in stationary format to utilize their buffing capacity (which remains helpful especially as you can move into range get the buff chance move out and get the proc.) Or make the special’s different say converting a stone spirit granting an AOE buff chance to a 15 second protection on the ranger and pet as the added bonus. Group proc chance magnified potential strength or forget the group BUFF ME style.

Playing longbow in the sniper vein, I’m actually impressed at the viable snipers perches included on PvP maps near(In firing range) of nodes or critical transit junctures. However the objectives are node flipping at least for now that requires being in a small exposed circle. Exactly where the sniper role wants to be only briefly after killing to cancel the netralization. AKA sniper needs to leave perch cancel flip, finish kill. If one of the spirits had a limited summon you back ability it would be a very nice secondary ability to a sniper and make you somewhat more viable in node defense offense by enabling quicker transit on a limited availability basis back into the snipers perch instantly..

Such an ability would also have melee options for escape which is why I’ld say range limited so you are functionally on the screen of the opponent somewhere.

Other ways to improve them. Allow the traits which benefit pets to benefit them, signets as well(haven’t tested that myself so perhaps they do). This would open up the option of adding toughness and heals and increasing durability in the pet line possibly.

I will say the spirits buff chance magnified over a group or a mass summoned swarm remains impressive. So I don’t really think proc chance is a problem. More ways to make them survivable or reattuning the 30 point talent(Say to summon previously placed pets to your new location vs transiting with them).

If you hide them they are usable now but not in fully intended benefit.

I don’t think the attack speed on the longbow needs to be adjusted, but some other tweaks are definitely necessary.

The 1 skill needs to have a faster arrow flight time and the distance thing needs to be removed or have a major change to it. I could understand a distance = more damage attribute on a skill such as barrage, but it just doesn’t make sense on the 1 skill. I liked the idea posted earlier though about giving it some sort of utility like crippling or something (maybe instead of bonus damage they could have a cripple applied at 1000+ range, 30% chance at 600-1000 range, and no cripple at 0-600 or something).

Rapid Fire could use a slight boost in damage…

The sword 1 skill should be redone; my idea would be to have the player side step while slashing (kind of like “Do” strike in kendo or something) as at least one of its phases. No invincibility/“dodge” frames, just movement.

Pets really need to be worked on… My wolf and the enemy will often chase each other in circles not being able to hit each other. If the enemy is chasing me, then the pet almost never hits (maybe like 30% of the time…). I also think that they should be able to dodge AOE’s at least some of the time on their own… like have them do a burst sprint thing or something past the enemy and out of the AOE (nothing ridiculously fast, but once that red circle comes up, they could do a little sprint to get the heck out of there).

I also don’t like how I feel like I have to sacrifice my pet in order to remove conditions… like seriously couldn’t they add a condition removal for at least the pet onto troll unguent and heal as one? I personally hate healing spring because it forces you to fight in the same tiny little area if you want it to heal you, and if you are at range; forget healing your pet you might as well not even have one…

In regards to axe 4, I understand not being crazy about it being a projectile finisher. But in conjunction with a sword MH that put’s a leap, projectile and whirl finisher in a single weapon set.

I’ld much prefer it to be more like greatsword 4. A melee block (Flattened axe) to a release move axe smash blast finisher(Wish we had one of those) damage and short knockback;). This would give axe axe a bit of melee defense rock as a field trigerer in sword axe and be a very defensive set functional to power and condition builds. perhaps a bit op long fields and blast.

We are a class with alot of potential fields. Controllable ice fire and water rnd poison off pets. We need a controllable blast finisher somewhere. Please……

While your at it you have to mention Intimidation training – cripple on canine and spider f2’s -

Canine f2’s
4 second chill – Doesn’t need another cripple
summon another hyena – target to get cripple must be in range of howl hyena’s also cripple anyways
2 fears of 2 seconds – 4 second snare minimizes distance target moves away.

None of those abilities need a 4-5 second snare(It seems to last a bit longer than the chill) I’ld argue a snare with the fear is counterproductive even I want them moving away as fast as possible.

Spiders -
2 2(s) stuns
Cave spider – it works for 2 attacks stacks the snare plus the venom
Forrest spider – can stack it 3 times to a 10ish second cripple also works for.

when a mid level trait is arguably only good for 2 of 8 possibilities it needs changing. And it’s on 30-45 second CD activation.

Sollith I think you are right, if the cripple gets a certain chance depending on the distance that would really help the longbow be a much better weapon.

Arrys, you make some great points. One of the most annoying things is when we get the “invulberable” thing on enemies because our pet can’t hit them. Anet specifically placed “sniper nests” in areas for ranged players to use. Should rangers be punished and restricted from using them because of our class mechanic? I don’t think so and it’s a major hindrance to our play. The idea on the 4 skill for axe is good, but giving us so many finishers and combo fields might become a little OP. However, i do like the idea of a skill similar to the greatsword 4 ability, or even a skill that does something to our pet like hunters shot.

At this point I don’t really think much of the BM traits. Honestly i only put in 10 points to make my pet more survivable, I personally think that the traits don’t warrant me putting too much more into the line as it is right now (maybe another 5 for lower CD on swap). Spending the points else where not only makes my ranger more viable, but my pet too,

I think rather than increase the shortbow damage, increase the bleeding duration of crossfire, like an extra second.

As for the other weapons, make them more viable, they’re all overshadowed by the weapons of other classes.

Some utility skills that would seem good:
1. Apply Poison
2. Kindle Arrows
3. Glass Arrows

All 3 of which do something similar to what they did in GW1. Make preparation a thing, come on!

I would love to see some preparations, i really loved that part in GW1 (althought we kinda have it in sharpening stone).

However, our weapons do not suck. All they need are some minor tweaks here and there, overall we have an amazing and variable weapon set that lets us bring alot to a party. The only problem is we have some bugs/minor tweaks to deal with.