Guild Wars 2

Alright, I’m back with more epic ideas. I’ve been following on the forums and have come to the realization that us rangers have some pretty lackluster weapons. Some just don’t function right and are very useful unfriendly (sword). Others are just too weak (MH Axe).

So, I was doing some think tanking today on how I would change ranger weapons to be balanced and awesome.

Here is my idea:

SPIRIT STRIKES:

I added a new mechanic to every single ranger weapon. Now one skill on each ranger weapon is capable of being charged to perform a “Spirit Strike.” These work just like the sword charge skills in Legend of Zelda and the premise is simple: The ranger simply holds down the weapon skill button instead of just pressing it. This causes the weapon skill to charge for up to 2 seconds, adding new effects.

So let’s get to some examples:

GREATSWORD:

Spirit Strike Skill: Maul
-After 1 Second: Becomes Crushing Maul. The bear spirit becomes blue, deals slightly more damage and the skill becomes a blast finisher.
-After 2 Seconds: The blue bear spirit becomes a flaming blue bear spirit, deals more damage, becomes a blast finisher, and also results in a small AoE nova of spirtual flames that damages nearby enemies (same range as the sigil of fire).

LONGBOW:

Spirit Strike Skill: Long Range Shot
-After 1 Second: Becomes Spirit Arrow. Flies 25% faster and deals more damage.
-After 2 Seconds: Flies 50% faster, deals more damage, always pierces, and always has 1500m range regardless of traits.

AXE:

Spirit Strike Skill: Ricochet
-After 1 Second: Becomes Spirit Cleave. Travels 25% faster, deals more damage, strikes targets in a line, and grants the ranger might. Does not bounce from target to target.
-After 2 Seconds: Same as above, but deals burning to all struck enemies.

SWORD:

Spirit Strike Skill: Special (See Below)
Sword is special because the autoattack chain would be replaced by a standard sword animation similar to mesmers and thieves. The third strike of the sword would grant might to the pet as usual. For the spirit strike, when the button is held down and released the Ranger will dash forward and perform the old autoattack chain (which still roots him in place but now has additional effects).
-After one second: Dash forward with the leaping slash from the old auto attack chain then kick your enemy like before, dealing cripple. Can be used as a gap closer.
-After two seconds: Dash forward with the leaping slash, kick the enemy to cripple, and strike with the sword causing the Ranger and the pet to regain Opening Strike.
*NOTE: Some CDs for skills 2 and 3 may need to be adjusted after this to balance the sword due to the frequency at which the ranger can now dodge with it.

SHORTBOW:

Spirit Strike Skill: Crossfire
-After one second: Becomes Glass Arrow. Fires an arrow of glass that shatters upon impact, striking up to 3 nearby foes and causing 2 stacks bleeding.
-After two seconds: Strikes up to 5 targets and causes 3 stacks of bleeding.

WARHORN:

Spirit Strike Skill: Hunter’s Call
-After one second: Becomes Birds of Prey. The initial hit now causes blind
-After two seconds: Increases the radius of effect around the target to 180, causing the birds to come down on up to 3 targets and cause blind + damage.

DAGGER:

Spirit Strike Skill: Crippling Talon
-After one second: Becomes Manticore Sting. Flies 50% faster and the animation shows the dagger thrown like a dart instead of spinning.
-After two seconds: Flies 50% faster and now causes torment.

OFFHAND AXE:

Spirit Strike Skill: Whirling Defense
-After one second: Becomes Whirling Storm. The ranger now gains stability while performing this ability.
-After 2 seconds: The ranger gains stability and also causes a field of crippling brambles to appear in the area around him. Causes aoe cripple to help snare enemies in the whirlwind.

TORCH:

Spirit Strike Skill: Bonfire
-After one second: Becomes Spirit Fire. Removes a condition from allies that are in the flames or enter the flames.
-After two seconds: Now removes a condition from allies like above and grants fury to allies in the flames or who enter the flames.

SIGNET OF THE HUNT:

To support this new system, signet of the hunt is now changed to still grant its original bonus to the pet but now instead makes the Ranger’s next weapon skill that is capable of a spirit strike an instant fully charged strike. This effect cannot be used within 7 seconds of performing a previous spirit strike to prevent things like back-to-back spirit arrows on a single target in pvp.

Generally, I don’t like the ideas. Too much bounding with Spirits, spiritual flames, spiritual attack. Some ideas, though, like adding blast finisher to Maul seems pretty .I have my own suggestion to SoH upon activation – You and pet get an ability to see and hit stealthed foes within 900 range for 6 seconds. 30 sec cd.

Too much charge, time. Ignoring getting the timing right to hit someone with these attacks, especially the melee ones, the telegraphing is just inviting an interrupt.

I have to agree. The telegraphing on all these ideas would make them super easy to dodge or interrupt.

I have to agree with the others as well. The Charging in addition to the skill activation time (Maul isn’t going to be suddenly instant or anything) will end up being quite long, and almost everyone will just dodge out of the way before you ever get to use it on anyone.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Too much charge, time. Ignoring getting the timing right to hit someone with these attacks, especially the melee ones, the telegraphing is just inviting an interrupt.

…but, that’s how attacks are supposed to be; the animations should have a wind up (telegraphing), strike, and then a follow through. People are just too used to spam these days… and besides it’s not like interrupts aren’t mostly just spammed as it is in GW2.

Charge attacks could work pretty well, not so much on melee weapons, but on the bows I think it could be interesting.

here, has a bump. anything other than what we have now would be better. my ideas:

1. pets need to be more like utility toolboxes. they need to do less autoattack damage, but need to be more responsive and potentially contribute more to burst damage. f2’s need to be instant and we need another active to manage, like the drake’s tailswipe.

2. spirits need to be invulnerable wisps that imbue the ranger’s weapons with elements. wisp actives would use up the wisp to create a large field depending on the theme (spring, summer, autumn, winter).

3. shouts need to matter

4. SB needs to give the ranger a lot more mobility and evasion, like a skirmishing weapon. autoattack needs to do less damage, but the other skills need to contribute to burst damage

5. EVADE REVAMP: spamming evades to survive sounds cool, but is a horrible mechanic because every time you evade, youre not doing anything offensive. each evade on every weapon needs a MEANINGFUL offensive effect (not something silly like single target poison or cripple). for example, sword #2 should inflict torment. GS #1 needs to be revamped in a way that the evade is on-demand

6. add more aoe’s. rangers have the worst aoe’s in the game. we need more access to aoe damage with our weapons.

Sollith.3502:

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Too much charge, time. Ignoring getting the timing right to hit someone with these attacks, especially the melee ones, the telegraphing is just inviting an interrupt.

…but, that’s how attacks are supposed to be; the animations should have a wind up (telegraphing), strike, and then a follow through. People are just too used to spam these days… and besides it’s not like interrupts aren’t mostly just spammed as it is in GW2.

Charge attacks could work pretty well, not so much on melee weapons, but on the bows I think it could be interesting.

True, charge attacks work much better on range weapons where telegraphing/interrupts are less of an issue. As long as you can hold a charge until you’re ready to release it, then it should be fine. I didn’t play the Wintersday Scout, but were you able to hold that charge ability?

For Wintersday Scout – that powerful shoot just had a simple cast time I believe